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Under the Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS), care providers are compelled to report all Priority 1 and Priority 2 incidents to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC), which is required by law to monitor and assess the reports to protect older Australians from harm.
However staff at the aged-care regulator say complaints are being closed with copy-and-pasted findings, in some cases leading to preventable deaths.
The aged-care regulator is dismissing thousands of serious incident reports regarding abuse, sexual assault, neglect and even deaths by ordering staff to close second-tier notifications without a proper assessment or, in some cases, any human assessment at all.