Incidents

Policy

The National Adverse Events Policy 2023 takes a restorative approach to incidents that cause harm to patients. General practices must transition to this model by 1 July 2024. This page will be revised as more guidance becomes available.

We have a duty to report and investigate accidents, incidents, adverse events, and near misses. This includes any event that could have, or did, cause harm to a patient, staff member, or visitor. The practice meets regulatory time frames for reporting and ensures staff are trained in what to do in the event of an accident, incident, or near miss.

Incidents as a result of patient health care are also adverse events, e.g. vaccination reactions. medication or treatment errors, or missed screening recalls.

We have a no-blame culture, and encourage staff to report incidents, adverse events, and near misses. Incidents are investigated, and monitored to help identify patterns. If appropriate, they are discussed with the practice team to learn from, identify any changes needed, and reduce the risk of them happening again.

At GPDocs Model Practice:

• All incidents are managed by following the incident management procedure. This includes:
  • adverse events that happen as a result of health care and affect patients.
  • incidents affecting patients, visitors, or contractors that relate to health and safety.
  • incidents affecting staff that relate to workplace health and safety.
• Serious adverse events are reported to the Health Quality and Safety Commission, and to the PHO.
• Serious medication reactions are reported to the Centre for Adverse Reactions Monitoring (CARM).
• Incidents subject to mandatory or discretionary reporting are reported to the relevant body, as appropriate.

Notifiable workplace incidents are reported as soon as possible after we become aware of them.

See also Incident Reporting Guidelines and Blood or Body Fluid Exposure.

Keywords: adverse events, adverse reactions, sentinel events, significant event, reportable events, notifiable events, accident