Maximising
quality of life
for the people
we support
Working with Northcott’s programs and
services, our Quality and Risk team ensures
we deliver high quality, best practice
services above industry benchmarks.
Highlights
All 143 Northcott accommodation services (including our disability homes, respite centres and specialist supported living services) were audited comprehensively in FY2022.
Our Quality Assurance Team is responsible for ensuring Northcott delivers the highest quality services to the children and adults we support. The team looks for ways to drive continual improvement across our services.
This year, we designed and implemented a risk matrix tool specifically for our disability houses and respite centres, which is used alongside our internal audit tool.
Internal audits enable us to identify gaps in service delivery and improve our practice. The risk matrix tool helps to identify and measure risk at the individual service level so our team can proactively adopt strategies to manage and eliminate risk.
Restrictive Practice Authorisation (RPA)
46 RPA panels reviewed 603 restrictive practices for 178 customers.
71% of restrictive practices in use are currently authorised.
This year we engaged with families and customers to support them to participate and contribute to the restrictive practice authorisation (RPA) process. This included developing Easy English and visual guides to support their understanding of the RPA panel.
We found that the normalisation of virtual platforms such as Zoom meetings has made the RPA panel more inclusive. This has allowed us to use Zoom meetings to gather feedback from all stakeholders’ post-panel attendance.
We are continuing to develop other ways to ‘hear’ the voices and views of our customers and stakeholders, to ensure we can champion choice and control in our service delivery.
Northcott maintained 100% compliance with all reporting requirements for restrictive practices used during service delivery. This means that we have met daily, weekly and monthly reporting requirements, as well as followed up with all the tasks required for meeting the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission ‘Reasonable Steps’ evidentiary mandate.
Risk
New Complex Needs and Customer Risk team created.
We established a new Complex Needs and Customer Risk team to provide additional support to customers and service units who have required the support of the existing Customer Risk Panel.
The Customer Risk Panel was established to support and monitor situations in which risks are present to customers, staff and the organisation, but attempts to address them have been unsuccessful. This process also includes a range of sub panels for specific areas of risk:
- Quality of Life Panel
- End of Life Panel
- Complex Support Needs Panel
Issues arising through these supports are reported to the Quality and Risk Committee for further oversight.
Safeguarding
13,850 incident notifications such as hazards, grievances, complaints and compliments recorded.
5,000 COVID-19 related incidents reviewed.
We continued to finetune our risk management system, Noggin, which was implemented in FY2021.
The enhancements have ensured better support for the management and investigation of incidents, along with improved tracking of COVID-19 cases, as well as risks and trends across areas of service delivery.
Healthcare and Clinical Governance
New Clinical Framework developed.
New referral pathway developed.
New Case Management and Allocation tool implemented.
We have a dedicated Healthcare and Clinical Governance team who are responsible for providing capacity building to support customers and their support staff to manage clinical risk and emerging health issues.
This includes expert health consultation and coordination, plan development, plan implementation training and hospital discharge planning.
This year, in line with actions in Northcott’s Strategic Plan 2021-23, we introduced the Clinical Governance Framework. This Framework is the set of relationships and responsibilities which shows Northcott’s commitment to safe, person-centred services with clear risk management functions and a focus on continuous improvement. The Healthcare and Clinical Governance team is leading an implementation plan to ensure Northcott’s strategic frameworks become an integral part of our culture and practice.
We also introduced a new referral pathway, which has enabled team members to gather more specific information about customer healthcare needs.
A new Case Management and Allocation Tool has supported staff to better manage high volume caseloads, prioritise and govern healthcare risks, monitor healthcare trends and establish key performance indicators.
Research grant
We are delighted to be part of a multi-institutional research project addressing the health inequalities faced by people with intellectual disability.
Led by the University of NSW (Department of Developmental Disability Neuropsychiatry), Northcott joins other leading disability service providers, health institutes, academics and peak disability bodies on the project.
Funded by a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Northcott has also contributed $200,000 cash and in-kind contributions to the 5-year project.
We believe the project will significantly benefit the health and wellbeing of people with intellectual disability.
Support Worker Internship Program
10 frontline workers from Northcott’s Housing team are
participating in an 18-week learning program.
Our subsidiary Northcott Innovation (NI) launched its Supported Living lab (SL/lab) Internship Program with 10 Northcott frontline workers from our Housing service participating.
Through exploring new skills in communication, problem solving and human-centred design, the 18-week learning program aims to develop the competency of support workers to identify and develop solutions to positively impact the lives of our residents.
As part of the program, each support worker will explore an area in the life of their customer that could be improved with an impactful aid or solution.
Participants in the Internship Program
1800 818 286