When the SIRS Clock Starts: 24 Hours and 30 Days

Q: What is the timeframe for reporting a Priority 2 reportable incident?

A Priority 2 reportable incident must be reported to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission within 30 calendar days of the provider becoming aware of it. A Priority 1 incident must be reported within 24 hours of becoming aware, with any further information provided within 5 days of becoming aware, unless the Commission sets a different period (Aged Care Rules 2025, s165A-25(6)).

Q: When does the SIRS reporting clock start?

The SIRS reporting clock starts at the moment the provider becomes aware of the incident, not the moment the incident occurred. For a Priority 1 incident, the 24-hour window runs from that point of awareness.

Q: Does a historical disclosure start a new SIRS clock?

Usually, yes. If a person receiving care discloses something that happened weeks or months ago, the clock runs from when your organisation became aware, not from the original event. A historical disclosure restarts the clock only if nobody in the organisation knew earlier. If someone already knew, the clock started then.

Q: What counts as the provider becoming aware of an incident?

The law does not define when a provider becomes aware. It does require a provider to ensure that a worker who becomes aware of an incident notifies a responsible person, their supervisor or manager, or a designated person as soon as possible (Aged Care Rules 2025, s165A-20 and s164-20(g)). Our advice, not a legal rule: assume the clock starts when any worker becomes aware, and keep the internal notification pathway fast and recorded.

When does the SIRS clock actually start?

Last updated November 2026

The single most misunderstood part of SIRS is when the clock starts. It is not when the incident happened. It is the moment your organisation became aware. That difference is where 24-hour windows quietly get missed, especially on weekends and with disclosures of older events.

This is guidance, not a determination or legal advice. Whether an incident is reportable under SIRS, and at what priority, is a judgement your organisation's nominated delegate must confirm. SIRS rules change: always verify current requirements against current ACQSC guidance and your own SIRS policy before you act. When you are genuinely unsure, the safer default we recommend is to report. The Commission says: “If you’re unsure whether an incident is criminal, it’s best to report it to the police”.

Awareness, not occurrence

The SIRS clock starts at the moment the provider becomes aware of the incident, not the moment the incident occurred. For a Priority 1 incident, the 24-hour window runs from that point of awareness. For a Priority 2 incident, the 30 calendar day window runs from the same point.

This is generous in principle and dangerous in practice, because most organisations never record the moment they became aware. If you cannot say when your clock started, you cannot prove you met the deadline.

SIRS reporting timeframes at a glance

Priority 1: report to the Commission within 24 hours of becoming aware, and provide any further information within 5 days of becoming aware, unless the Commission sets a different period (s165A-25(6)).
Priority 2: report within 30 calendar days of becoming aware.
Significant new information on an incident you have already reported: tell the Commission as soon as reasonably practicable (s165A-40).
Final report: within 84 days, if the Commission requires one (s165A-45).
Police: if there are reasonable grounds to report the incident to police, notify police within 24 hours of becoming aware (s164-40(2)), with a fresh 24 hours if the grounds emerge later (s164-40(3)).

What is the timeframe for reporting a Priority 2 reportable incident? 30 calendar days from the day your organisation becomes aware, not from the day it happened. Which priority applies is covered in Priority 1 vs Priority 2.

Historical disclosures and who knew first

If a person receiving care, or their family, discloses today something that happened weeks or months ago, the clock runs from when your organisation became aware, not from the original event. A historical disclosure restarts the clock only if nobody in the organisation knew earlier. If a worker or manager already knew, the clock started then. This catches providers out constantly, because it feels like old news, but for SIRS purposes it is a notification obligation with its own deadline.

What the Rules say about awareness

"Becoming aware" is not defined in the Aged Care Act 2024 or the Aged Care Rules 2025. What the Rules do require is that a provider ensures a worker who becomes aware of an incident notifies a responsible person, their supervisor or manager, or a designated person "as soon as possible" (s165A-20 and s164-20(g)).

Our advice, not a legal rule: assume the clock starts when any worker becomes aware, not when a manager hears about it.

The verbal-escalation trap

The most common failure mode is a verbal chain with no record. A carer phones a coordinator, the coordinator tells the manager, and by the time anyone opens the incident register three hours have passed and nobody can say exactly when awareness happened. On a 24-hour clock, those hours matter.

The fix is a timestamp, not a policy reminder. The moment a worker becomes aware and reports an incident should be captured with a time attached, so awareness is a recorded fact rather than something people try to reconstruct later.

Weekends and public holidays: plan for the risk

Neither the 24-hour nor the 30 calendar day timeframe is defined in business days, so the calendar keeps running through the weekend. Plan to lodge within the timeframe, and do not rely on a weekend or holiday extension.

What a weekend deadline does create is operational risk: your office may be unstaffed on the day the notification is due. The answer is to roster someone who can lodge it, rather than assuming the deadline waits until Monday. This is especially sharp for small and home-care providers with no after-hours decision maker on site.

Use the deadline calculator to see when your deadline falls and whether it lands on a weekend or public holiday.

Calculate your deadline from awareness Priority 1 vs Priority 2 Is this reportable? Decision tool Back to the SIRS guide

Primary source

This page is based on guidance published by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC) under the Aged Care Act 2024 and the Aged Care Rules 2025, in force from 1 November 2025.

Turn awareness into an on-time notification

Knowing when the clock starts is only the first step. These guides and tools cover the rest of the timeline.

Calculate the exact deadline from awareness

Enter the moment of awareness and the priority to get the due date.

Confirm the category first

Answer a few questions to see the likely reportable category and priority.

Notification checklist

What the notification needs to contain before you lodge it.

Strengthened Quality Standards 2025

How incident management under Standard 2 connects to SIRS timing.

Timestamp awareness automatically

Teiro records the moment an incident is logged, not just when it happened.

The record already exists by the time the clock is running

Teiro captures the incident at the point of care, timestamps the moment your team became aware of it, surfaces the classification question to your reviewer with the facts already attached, tracks the deadline once a priority is assigned, and produces the record you need to lodge your SIRS notification. The decision about whether something is reportable, and at what priority, stays with your organisation's delegate. Teiro makes sure that decision gets made in time, by the right person, with the facts already in front of them.

Teiro does not determine reportability, and does not submit notifications to the ACQSC or the NDIS Commission on your behalf. It produces the record your delegate needs to make the call and lodge it.