Unauthorised use of a restrictive practice as a reportable incident

An unauthorised use of a restrictive practice is a reportable incident. CompanionAxis opens the incident for you when the use is saved and starts the NDIS Commission timer. This article shows how to find it and take it through to notification.

Before you begin

• The use has been recorded (see Recording use of a restrictive practice on shift), or you are logging the incident directly.
• To prepare the Commission notification you need the Prepare Commission notifications permission; to record it as lodged you need Record Commission lodgement.

What happens automatically

1. When a use is saved without current authorisation, a reportable incident is created in the category Unauthorised use of a restrictive practice in relation to a person with disability, with the use attached.
2. The notification timer starts. It is 5 business days when nobody was harmed, and 24 hours when Someone was injured was ticked.
3. Quality and compliance staff and operations managers get an Unauthorised restrictive practice notification. It cannot be switched off.
4. The use shows an Unauthorised badge and the tile Unauthorised uses on Care → Restrictive practices goes up by one.

Open the incident from the use

1. Go to Care → Restrictive practices and open the Uses tab.
2. Filter Authorised to Unauthorised.
3. In the Reporting column, select View incident.
4. If the column shows Create reportable incident instead, select it. You see Reportable incident opened with the use record attached; 5 business day timer started. and the incident opens.
5. If it shows only a Reportable badge, ask someone with incident permissions to open it.

Log it from the incident form instead

1. Go to Quality → Incidents and select Log incident.
2. On the Reportable check step, answer Yes or Unsure to Was a restrictive practice used that was not authorised or not in the behaviour support plan? The question lists the practices on record for the participant.
3. Answer the follow-up Did the restrictive practice cause harm (injury or distress needing treatment)? This decides whether the timeline is 24 hours or 5 business days.
4. Finish the form. See Recording an incident: what happened, who was involved and immediate actions.

Notify the Commission

1. On the incident, read the red banner with the due time and countdown.
2. Open the Commission notification tab and select Draft from the record.
3. Copy each section into the NDIS Commission portal, then select Mark as submitted and enter the Commission reference.
4. On the Linked records tab, the Restrictive practices card shows the participant’s practices and their authorisation status for the investigation.

Full steps are in Notifying a reportable incident to the NDIS Commission on time.

Tips

• The reasons the use was unauthorised (for example not in the plan, no authorisation, expired, exceeded duration) are shown in red at the top of the use record.
• Fix the cause as a corrective action on the incident, for example an authorisation renewal or an update to the plan.
• If nobody has any practice on record for the participant, the incident says that any use is unauthorised.

If something goes wrong

The incident was not created automatically.

Your organisation may have switched off Create a reportable incident draft for unauthorised use. Use Create reportable incident on the use, or log the incident with the unauthorised restrictive practice question answered Yes.

You don’t have permission (incidents.reports.create).

The Create reportable incident action needs a separate incident permission. Ask your administrator, or log the incident from Quality → Incidents.

The timer shows 24 hours, not 5 business days.

Someone was injured, or harm was answered Yes or Unsure. That makes the 24-hour timeline apply.