Sometimes things don't always go to plan on Hireup bookings. But it can be difficult to know what an incident actually is.
So, we caught up with Hireup’s incident team to answer all of your incident related questions.
What is an incident?
At Hireup, something is considered an incident if it causes distress to either a client or support worker.
Examples of incidents could include:
- A car accident
- Any physical or psychological injury - no matter how small - to a client or support worker
- Escalation of behaviours
- Any concerns concerns of potential risks of abuse and neglect, bullying and harassment
- Medical episodes including seizures
- A person passing away
- Requiring hospitalisation
- Breaches to Hireup’s Code of Conduct
If an incident involves reporting to a third party such as Child Protective Services or the police, then this must also be reported to Hireup with the third party report number, if available.
If an incident occurs, what should Hireup clients and support workers do?
If you have immediate safety concerns for yourself or others, call emergency services and submit an incident report when safe to do so. You can easily locate incident report forms by logging into Hireup, clicking the drop down arrow that’s in the right corner of the dashboard and select ‘Report Incident’.
For all other concerns or incidents that occur while on a booking, you can submit an incident when submitting your hours or by going to your profile and submitting an incident report.
All incidents must be reported within 24hrs of occurring as this is an NDIS Reporting Requirement. If you need to speak to someone urgently (but not emergency services) then an after hours number will be provided once you submit an incident report.
Please Note: If a client, account manager or support worker is asking you not to report an incident, it’s important that you report this to Hireup so we can communicate with them about the purpose of incident reporting. Reporting all incidents, as listed above is a requirement of a support worker’s employee contract.
What should Hireup clients and support workers do if an incident occurs after hours?
If you have immediate safety concerns, contact emergency services and submit an incident report when it is safe to do so. Hireup has a 24/7 incidents team who will respond to you within 4 hours. However, once an incident report is submitted you will be provided with an after hours number that you can contact if the matter requires. You will not be penalised for using this number.
When and how should someone on Hireup report an incident?
Within 24 hours of an incident occurring. If you are unsure if something is an incident, submit an incident report anyway. You will not be penalised for submitting a report that doesn’t classify as an incident.
What are NDIS reportable incidents?
We have an obligation to report the following within 24 hours to the NDIS if the following events occur during a Hireup booking:
- The serious injury of a person with disability
- Abuse or neglect of a person with disability
- Unlawful sexual or physical contact with, or assault of a person with a disability
- Sexual misconduct committed against, or in the presence of, a person with disability including the grooming of the person for sexual activity
- The use of a restrictive practice in relation to a person with disability that is unauthorised use or not in accordance with a behaviour support plan
- The death of a person with a disability
A note about serious injury: This includes a situation where hospitalisation or hospital treatment is required (for example: burns, fractures, deep cuts, extensive bruising, head or brain injuries).
You can learn more about NDIS reportable incidents by reading the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission’s guide (June 2019).
If in doubt, please submit an incident report.
A note from our incidents team:
All Hireup support workers are employees. As an employee, it is mandatory that you report any incident. You are required to report all incidents mentioned above, even if you’re told or asked by a client or account manager not to. This is set out in section 5.1 of Hireup’s Employment Agreement. We recommend that you check out our working safely module to refresh on safe and effective support.
Our main concern as the incidents team at Hireup is the safety and wellbeing of our entire community. So please help us support you and keep you safe by reporting any incident, no matter how small, to us.
Further information: We’ve created a Harassment and Bullying policy to promote greater awareness and help identify unsafe behaviours. Check out the policy to learn more.
