Incident Management

Nearly two million people receive care in NSW public hospitals every year, where the standards of care are among the best in the world. As is the case with every health system, occasionally an unplanned event occurs that causes harm, or has the potential to cause harm. This is known as a clinical incident.

NSW Health staff members are required to report all identified clinical incidents, near misses and complaints in the state-wide incident management system. During 2019 – 2020 the new ims+ system has been progressively rolled out across NSW. ims+ replaces the previous Incident Information Management System (IIMS).

Biannual Incident Reports provide feedback and data analysis of trends identified from incident reports and Serious Adverse Events Reports.

Each NSW Health entity is required to have in a place a system to manage incidents based on the principles of immediacy, accountability and kindness. These principles guide interactions with patients, carers and families, staff and the broader community.

Immediacy We act immediately when people are harmed or at risk of harm.
Accountability We are open when things go wrong. We review to learn. We make changes to improve. We share what we find and learn.
Kindness

We are caring. We are fair and just. We support all who are affected.

More information about the changes to incident management in NSW is available at Incident Management Resources.

The NSW Health Incident Management Policy PD2020_047 provides more details on how incidents are managed in NSW Health facilities.