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New South Wales

All NSW public hospitals use the Incident Information Management System (IIMS) for clinical incident reporting. Entered incidents are rated for outcome severity at the local level using a Safety Assessment Code (SAC). There are four SAC ratings, ranging from SAC1 (extreme risk/harm) to SAC4 (low risk/harm).

There is a requirement that once confirmed as a SAC1 incident, a notification to the NSW Ministry of Health and the NSW CEC (a Reportable Incident Brief) must be attended within 24 hours, and the final report is to be submitted within 70 days. All SAC1 incidents are subject to a thorough RCA, to determine causality and identify opportunities to make services safer.

Incidents other than SAC1 are managed at the local level, and further collation and analysis is undertaken at the unit, hospital, Local Health District and State level to identify opportunities for local and state wide improvement.

Further information on Incident Management in NSW, including those related to blood and blood products, can be found in the NSW Health Incident Management Policy document at: http://www0.health.nsw.gov.au/policies/pd/2014/pdf/PD2014_004.pdf