From 15 June 2021, residential aged care providers must report workforce COVID-19 vaccinations. Here’s what you need to know.
Reporting is mandatory from 15 June 2021. From then on, you must report every week. This means you must collect data every week and report it every week.
An online reporting tool is now available for providers to use on a voluntary basis via My Aged Care.
The definition of worker is broad and includes anyone (including volunteers) responsible for resident care, support and services for residents, maintenance or administration at a residential care facility.
According to the Department of Health, “Workers means all individuals, including volunteers, who access, or are reasonably likely to access, any premises where the operation or administration of the service occurs (as defined in the Quality of Care Principles).” This includes:
At this time, workers do not have to get COVID-19 vaccinated. Also, workers do not have to tell you whether or not they are vaccinated, and you should not pressure them to answer.
If a worker declines to provide information on their vaccination status, you should still include them in the total number of workers at the service.
Workers do not have to provide evidence of their vaccination status. In fact, the Department of Health advises that “Workers should not be required to provide evidence to confirm their vaccination status.” While evidence is not required for reporting purposes, if this information is freely given by the employee it will be very useful in planning for and managing COVID-19 outbreaks.
The Department advises that if a worker wants to show evidence of their vaccination, they can provide:
The Department of Health encourages you to “have respectful conversations with workers on the new reporting of
aged care workforce COVID-19 vaccination status and to ensure they understand:
You should also consider sharing with your workers this fact sheet from the Department of Health: COVID-19 vaccination – Why is my residential aged care employer asking me if I have received a COVID-19 vaccination?
The Department of Health advises that if a worker “works across multiple sites with your organisation, you should include them in the data once for their primary site (the facility where they work the most).” You should also include agency staff or staff who work at other facilities if their most regular and frequent shifts occur at one of your residential aged care services.
The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC) will monitor compliance with the reporting requirements and has power to take regulatory action if you do not comply. This may include sanctions.
The data you will have to collect from 15 June 2021 is minimal: you only have to collect the total number of workers, and number of vaccinations. But it will still cost you time, staffing resources and effort to collect and report on this information every week. So why not get something useful out of a task you have to do anyway?
When drafting your data collection forms, consider adding a few more fields that you can fill in when talking to your workers or reviewing records. These might include:
When collecting information from workers make sure you adhere to privacy requirements: