Serious incidents: injury, trauma or illness - what to do

Approved providers, nominated supervisors and educators all have responsibility for supporting the health, safety and wellbeing of children. Approved providers are required to notify the Education Standards Board about any serious incident within 24 hours of the incident.

ACECQA has published its ninth occasional paper, analysing serious incidents relation to injury, trauma or illness using data from the National Quality Agenda IT System (NQA ITS).

The paper highlights the trends in notifications of serious incidents resulting in injury, trauma or illness in children’s education and care services during a two-year period. It identifies the volume, characteristics and causes of these incidents, including the times and locations they are more likely to happen. It also offers practical strategies to support providers and educators to prevent and reduce such incidents.

Providers, teachers and educators can also refer to our recently published information sheet on managing and responding to injury, trauma and illness incidents.

ACECQA and the Education Standards Board encourage all approved providers and services to review and consider the findings in this occasional paper as a part of ongoing quality improvement.

Resources:

Occasional paper 9: Serious incidents – injury, trauma or illness (ACECQA)

Managing and responding to injury, trauma and illness incidents QA2 factsheet (ACECQA)

Regulatory priorities for South Australia 2023-24 see ‘Improved reporting of serious incidents’ (Education Standards Board)

Notifying a serious incident (Education Standards Board)

Education and Care Services National Law (SA) s174(2)(a) and s174A

National Regulations r176(2)(a)(ii)