SIRS is one of the most demanding obligations in aged care. Here are the eight reportable incident types, the Priority 1 and Priority 2 timeframes, and how to stay on top of them.
The Accorda Team · 24 June 2026
For aged care providers, the Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) is one of the most operationally demanding obligations you carry. Get it right and it's a quiet, well-run process. Get it wrong — miss a reportable incident, misjudge a priority, or blow a notification deadline — and the consequences are real, both for the people in your care and for your standing with the regulator.
This guide covers what SIRS actually requires: which incidents are reportable, the timeframes that apply, and the practical reasons it's easy to get wrong. It reflects the position as of June 2026; the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission's pages are the source of truth, so confirm the detail that applies to your service.
SIRS is a mandatory incident management and reporting scheme overseen by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC). It exists to reduce the risk of abuse and neglect of older people, and to make sure that when serious incidents happen, providers respond properly and learn from them.
Under the new Aged Care Act 2024, SIRS continues and has been expanded. It applies to all registered aged care providers delivering residential care and — since 1 November 2025 — to Support at Home (in-home) providers as well. If you deliver government-funded aged care, SIRS almost certainly applies to you.
The scheme places two distinct obligations on you:
An effective incident management system (IMS) for all incidents — not just the reportable ones. You're expected to identify, record, manage and resolve incidents, and to use the data to prevent recurrence.
Mandatory reporting of reportable incidents to the Commission, within set timeframes.
The first obligation is the one providers underestimate. SIRS isn't only about the serious notifications — it expects a working system that captures everything and shows you act on it.
Under the Aged Care Act, a reportable incident is one that has occurred, is alleged to have occurred, or is suspected of having occurred in connection with care, and falls into one of eight categories:
Unreasonable use of force
Unlawful sexual contact or inappropriate sexual conduct
Psychological or emotional abuse
Unexpected death
Stealing or financial coercion by a staff member
Neglect
Inappropriate use of restrictive practices
Unexplained absence from care
Two things catch providers out here. First, allegations and suspicions count — you don't wait for proof before it becomes reportable. Second, an incident involving a staff member, visitor or property, rather than a care recipient, generally sits outside SIRS and is handled as a work health and safety matter instead. Knowing which scheme an incident actually engages is half the battle.
Once an incident is reportable, you have to classify it — and the classification sets the clock.
Priority 1 incidents are the most serious: those that caused, or could reasonably have been expected to cause, physical or psychological injury or discomfort requiring medical or psychological treatment, plus any incident where there are reasonable grounds to report it to police, unlawful sexual conduct, and unexpected death. Priority 1 incidents must be notified to the Commission within 24 hours of becoming aware. If you can't supply every detail in that window, the outstanding information generally follows within five days.
Priority 2 incidents are all other reportable incidents that don't meet the Priority 1 threshold. These must be notified within 30 days of becoming aware.
A few practical points that decide whether you meet those deadlines:
The clock starts when any staff member becomes aware — not when a manager reviews it. A frontline worker learning of an incident on a Friday afternoon starts the 24-hour clock then, not on Monday.
When in doubt, treat it as Priority 1. It's far safer to over-classify and report early than to under-classify and miss the 24-hour window.
SIRS doesn't replace police reporting. Where there are reasonable grounds, you still report to police separately.
Definitions and some detail differ between residential care and home services, so confirm what applies to your setting.
The 24-hour clock starts when your newest staff member hears about it — not when it reaches your desk. That's why SIRS is a frontline system, not a back-office one.
None of the above is conceptually difficult. What makes SIRS demanding is that it asks for fast, correct judgement at the edge of your organisation, under time pressure, every time.
You have to spot that an incident is reportable at all — which means your staff need to recognise the eight categories, including the less obvious ones like psychological abuse or financial coercion. You have to classify priority correctly, which is a judgement about harm. You have to act within a window that starts at the moment of frontline awareness. And underneath the reportable incidents, you have to keep a complete record of every incident, with corrective actions tracked to resolution, because that's the incident management system SIRS expects you to run — and the evidence an assessor looks at.
Miss any link in that chain and the failure shows up at the worst possible time: a late notification flagged on your record, or a gap an assessor finds during a contact.
This is where Accorda's incident management is built to carry the load — and it does one thing for aged care providers that generic tools don't.
It knows you're an aged care provider, and assesses against the right scheme. Accorda reads your compliance profile. When you're set up as aged care, it assesses recorded incidents against SIRS and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission — not the NDIS reportable incidents scheme. An NDIS provider gets the NDIS rulebook; you get yours. The same incident is read against the eight SIRS categories and the Priority 1 / Priority 2 structure that actually apply to you.
From there:
It flags incidents that may be reportable — surfacing them for your team rather than letting them sit unnoticed. Crucially, it flags; it doesn't decide. A possible reportable incident is marked for review, and a human on your team confirms the reportable assessment. Accorda won't let a flagged incident be closed out until someone has made that call. The determination stays with the people accountable for it — exactly as it should, given the legal weight a notification carries.
It keeps the incident management system SIRS expects — capturing every incident, reportable or not, with triage, corrective actions and close-out tracked, and the whole history retained.
It points you to confirm the current timeframe rather than asserting a deadline as gospel, because Priority 1 and Priority 2 windows — and how they apply across residential and home settings — are the Commission's to define, not a tool's to guess.
It keeps the evidence audit-ready — every incident recorded with a tamper-evident trail, and audit evidence packs you can produce when the Commission asks.
To be clear about what it doesn't do: Accorda doesn't lodge your notification to the Commission for you — that's done through My Aged Care, by you. What it does is make sure the right incidents are recognised, assessed against the right scheme, confirmed by a human, and fully documented, so nothing slips between the floor and the deadline.
SIRS rewards providers who run a tight, fast, well-documented incident process — and punishes the gaps. The hard part was never understanding the rules; it's making sure every incident is caught, read against the right scheme, classified correctly and recorded completely, every time, by everyone. That's a systems problem, and it's one worth solving before an incident forces the issue.
Want incident reporting that knows aged care from NDIS — and flags what matters? Start your free 14-day trial at accorda.com.au — no credit card required.
For the most current and authoritative detail, refer to the regulator directly:
Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission — The Serious Incident Response Scheme
Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission — About reportable incidents
This article is general information for Australian care and regulated businesses and isn't legal or compliance advice. It reflects the position as of June 2026 — always check the current guidance from the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, including its SIRS decision support tool, and confirm what applies to your service and setting.
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