All incidents that cause harm to a client during service delivery need to be reported by all in-scope services through CIMS.
Reporting client incidents through CIMS applied to department funded organisations and NDIS providers from 15 January 2018.
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The Client incident management system
The Client incident management system
The Client incident management system (CIMS) focuses on the safety and wellbeing of clients by outlining the approach and key actions to manage client incidents.
The CIMS applies to the following department delivered services and funded organisations:
Children, youth and family services
- family and community services
- out-of-home care
- secure welfare
- statutory child protection services
Disability services
- individual support
- information, planning and capacity building
- targeted services
- residential accommodation services
- Victorian approved National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) providers of disability and psychosocial supports
Health services
- aged care and carer's support services
- alcohol and drug treatment services
- community and palliative care services
- home and community care (HACC) services for people aged under 65 and under 50 for Aboriginal people
- mental health community support services (MHCSS)
- sexual health prevention services
Housing and community building services
- department managed housing
- homelessness assistance
- long-term housing assistance
Youth services
- refugee minor program
- youth services
For NDIS providers: Victoria's quality and safeguards arrangements will remain during transition to full scheme roll-out in 2019. This means that NDIS providers are required to comply with the CIMS.
Applicable policies
CIMS is supported by a new policy:
- Client incident management guide
- Client incident management guide - out-of-home care addendum
Find out more about the CIMS
The CIMS webpage has more information about the CIMS, including the policy, link to the incident report webform and client incident register, fact sheets, implementation guidance, learning and development materials and IT requirements.
For assistance with the CIMS, refer to resources within the CIMS webpage or email CIMS@dffh.vic.gov.au. Stakeholders using their own IT reporting system and submitting incidents via the application program interface should continue to speak with their IT vendor.
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Reporting privacy breaches alongside CIMS
Funded organisations previously reported privacy incidents as category one critical incident reports. With the introduction of the Client Incident Management System (CIMS) a new eform based Privacy incident report form was developed to enable funded organisations to continue notifying the department about privacy incidents.
Privacy incidents must be reported within one business day. A privacy breach that impacts a client may need to be reported as a client incident under CIMS as well as through a privacy incident report.
Visit the Privacy page for more information, including a link to the Privacy incident report web form, fact sheets and guidelines.
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Failure to disclose child sexual abuse
The offence for failure to disclose child sexual abuse to the police came into effect on 27 October 2014.
The offence requires that any adult who holds a reasonable belief that a sexual offence has been committed in Victoria by an adult against a child (aged under 16) disclose that information to police.
The offence applies to all adults, not just professionals who work with children, unless they have a reasonable excuse.
For more information about the regime and how to report, visit the DFFH offence for failure to disclose child sexual abuse page.
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Better safeguards for people with a disability
What is happening?
The Victorian Government is strengthening the safeguards for people with a disability and implementing the recommendations of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Abuse in Disability Services (the Parliamentary Inquiry). The Parliamentary Inquiry was set up to investigate why abuse is not always reported in the disability sector and responded to, and how abuse can be prevented.
As part of its response to the Parliamentary Inquiry, the Victorian Government is increasing the independent oversight of the disability sector by expanding the Disability Services Commissioner's (the Commissioner) inquiries into client incident reports to include client deaths.
Victoria has also agreed to the Commonwealth Government's National Quality and Safeguards Framework for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which will establish the national safeguards under the NDIS. Until that framework is in place, the government will continue its work to implement the Parliamentary Inquiry's recommendations and ensure the highest standards of quality and support for people with a disability.
Expanded review of critical incidents
The department currently provides the Commissioner with all Category One incident reports of:
- injury
- sexual abuse
- physical abuse
- emotional/psychological abuse
- emotional/psychological trauma
- financial abuse
- inappropriate physical treatment
- sexual exploitation
- poor quality of care
- client deaths
Services in scope
The Commissioner's inquiries into assault, injury, poor quality of care and deaths apply to disability services provided by the department and disability service providers registered, funded or contracted under the Disability Act 2006 (the Act).
During the transition to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), this includes Victorian approved NDIS providers registered under the Act.
Further information
For further information about the Commissioner’s new functions and powers, see:
- the department’s website, which includes a fact sheet for service providers
- the Commissioner’s website.