Incidents, notifications and safeguarding concerns

Record	What it is	Who works on it
Incident	Something that happened, such as a fall, an injury, a medication error, a person going missing, a police call-out or a death	Any member of staff reports it; managers review and close it
Safeguarding concern	A worry that a person is being harmed or is at risk of harm	Any member of staff raises it; the safeguarding lead decides it

Action	Permission
See incidents	care.incident.view
Report an incident	care.incident.report
Review, re-grade, add people and actions, close; manage notification rules	care.incident.manage
Raise a safeguarding concern	care.safeguarding.raise
See safeguarding incidents and concerns, and the inbox	care.safeguarding.view (sensitive)
Decide concerns	care.safeguarding.manage (sensitive)

Report an incident

Where: Care → Incidents → Report an incident.

Field	What to enter	Example
What happened	Fall, Injury, Medication error, Missing person, Behaviour, Physical intervention, Allegation against staff, Abuse disclosure, Self-harm, Property damage, Illness outbreak, Death, Police involvement or Other	Fall
Severity	Near miss, Low, Moderate, Severe or Critical	Moderate
When	When it happened; cannot be in the future	02/03/2026 07:40
Facility	Where, or Not at a facility (for example on an outing)	Sunrise Elm Lodge
Description	What happened: facts, in order	Ruth found on the bathroom floor. Conscious, complaining of hip pain.
Immediate action taken	What staff did straight away	First aid, ambulance called 07:45, daughter informed 08:00
Person and Their involvement	The resident, and their role: Subject, Alleged perpetrator, Witness, Staff involved or Visitor	Ruth Evans · Subject

Select Report incident. It gets a number such as INC-000027, status Reported, and appears in the Incidents list and on each named person's profile.

Incidents created for you:

• Recording an absence of type Missing creates a Missing person incident.
• Confirming a medication error from the medication round creates a Medication error incident.

Check the list before reporting the same event again.

Safeguarding incidents

If What happened is Allegation against staff or Abuse disclosure, the form warns: "This is recorded as a safeguarding incident. Only safeguarding staff can see it, and never the staff member involved."

• Only staff with care.safeguarding.view can see it.
• Any member of staff named on it as Staff involved or Alleged perpetrator can never see it, even if they have safeguarding access.
• It can never be turned back into an ordinary incident, even by re-grading.

Example: a resident tells Sara that a night carer, Ben, pushed her. Sara reports What happened: Abuse disclosure, Severity Severe, adding the resident as Subject and Ben as Alleged perpetrator. Sara can still see it, because she is not named as staff involved. Ben can never see it. Priya sees it in the Safeguarding inbox.

Work an incident through

Where: select the incident number to open it.

Button	When to use it
Move to under review	A manager has started looking at it
Move to investigating	A formal investigation is needed
Close incident	Finished. You are asked for the Outcome (required) and Lessons learned (optional).

A closed incident cannot be changed: "Incident is closed".

Re-grade

Under Re-grade, change the Type or Severity and select Save grading. The notification deadline is recalculated. A safeguarding incident stays safeguarding.

Example: a fall first reported as Low turns out to be a fractured hip. Re-grade it to Severe. If a rule notifies the regulator about severe falls, the incident now shows a deadline.

People involved

Add everyone involved, with their Involvement: Subject, Alleged perpetrator, Witness, Staff involved or Visitor. Each person can be added once per involvement. People you may not see show Restricted.

Actions taken

Record each follow-up step. Actions cannot be changed once recorded.

Field	What to enter	Example
Action	Notified authority, Notified family, Notified police, Medical attention, Investigation step or Review	Notified authority
When	When it was done; not in the future	02/03/2026 11:15
External reference	Reference from the other party	CQC-2026-55812
Notes	Details	Statutory notification submitted online

Notification rules

Some incidents must be reported to an outside body, such as the regulator or the local authority, within a deadline. No rules are provided: your organisation adds its own.

Where: Care → Incidents → Notification rules. Who: care.incident.manage.

Field	What to enter	Example
Type	The incident type	Death
From severity	The lowest severity that triggers it	Near miss (that is, always)
Authority	Who must be told	Care Quality Commission
Deadline (hours)	Hours from when the incident happened, 1–720	24

Select Add rule. Use Deactivate or Activate on a rule to switch it off or on. The same type, severity and authority can only be added once.

How the deadline is worked out: when an incident is reported or re-graded, every active rule for its type whose From severity is at or below the incident's severity applies. The incident lists all those authorities, and the shortest deadline counts from the time it happened.

Example rules at Sunrise:

Type	From severity	Authority	Deadline
Death	Near miss	Care Quality Commission	24 h
Fall	Severe	Care Quality Commission	72 h
Allegation against staff	Near miss	Local authority designated officer	24 h
Missing person	Moderate	Local authority	24 h

Ruth's fall, re-graded Severe at 07:40 on 2 March, shows "Notification to Care Quality Commission was due 5 Mar 2026, 07:40. Record the notification below."

To record that you notified: add an action of type Notified authority with the time and reference. The incident then counts as notified, and drops off Overdue notifications in the Safeguarding inbox.

Nothing is sent for you

Recording a notification does not submit anything to the authority. Notify them by your usual route (online form, phone or email), then record it here.

Raise a safeguarding concern

Where: profile → Incidents and safeguarding → Raise a safeguarding concern. Who: care.safeguarding.raise.

Field	What to enter	Example
Category	Physical, Emotional, Sexual, Neglect, Exploitation, Radicalisation, Self-neglect or Financial abuse	Exploitation
What you saw or were told	The facts, and the person's own words where possible	Daniel has new expensive trainers and two phones. He said "a mate gives me cash for dropping parcels".

Select Raise concern. The concern goes to the safeguarding lead with status Open. The form warns that you may not be able to see it afterwards; that's normal.

Concerns raised by the system: when a prohibited visitor is refused at the door, a Draft concern is created automatically. See Visits.

The safeguarding lead's inbox

Where: Care → Safeguarding. Who: care.safeguarding.view; decisions need care.safeguarding.manage.

The safeguarding lead works from this page. No email or text messages are sent. It shows:

Panel	Contents
Concerns needing attention	Every concern not yet closed, with its description and the decision so far
Safeguarding incidents	Open safeguarding incidents
Overdue notifications	Incidents past their notification deadline without a Notified authority action
Emergency access in the last 7 days	Who used break-glass, on whom, and why

Decide a concern

Button	Meaning	You are asked for
Open as concern (drafts)	Accept a system-drafted concern for review	A category (Category when opening a draft) and an optional note
Escalated	Needs senior or multi-agency attention	A rationale
Referred external	Referred to the police, local authority or another body	A rationale
No further action	Considered; no action needed	A rationale
Closed	Finished	A rationale

Every decision needs a rationale ("A rationale is required for a safeguarding decision"), which stays with the concern.

Example: Daniel

1. Priya reads Sara's concern and selects Escalated. Rationale: "Indicators of criminal exploitation (county lines). Strategy meeting requested 10/05."
2. After the strategy meeting: Referred external. Rationale: "Referred to police exploitation team, ref EXP-7781."
3. Months later: Closed. Rationale: "Police case concluded; safety plan in the care plan."

If you can't see an incident or concern

Situation	Reason
A safeguarding incident is missing from your list	You don't have safeguarding access, or you are named on it as staff involved or alleged perpetrator.
You raised a concern and can't see it now	Concerns are visible only to safeguarding staff.
A person on an incident shows Restricted	You can't see that person's record (another home, caseload, protected).
An incident isn't listed at all	It's at a home you have no access to.

Never report the same event again in a less restricted way to make it visible. Ask the safeguarding lead.