QFR Guide – Registered Nurse care minutes reporting for residential aged care providers

Welcome to a video presentation that will provide guidance on reporting Registered Nurse Care minutes, which are Worked Hours (that exclude leave and training) in the residential care labour cost and hours reporting section of the Quarterly Financial Report, otherwise known as the QFR

This video is part of a series that will provide guidance to residential aged care providers on completing this section of the QFR

The reporting of registered nurse shift hours is a NEW reporting requirement for residential aged care providers

This information is important because it will allow the Department to understand the 24-hour coverage of registered nurse care

While not yet a mandatory requirement, the Royal Commission recommended that a registered nurse is required on-site at all times.

Starting 1 July 2023, a registered nurse will be required in a residential aged care facility 24hrs per day

The reporting of registered nurse shift hours will help the Department to monitor the cost of care to aged care providers, and will contribute to the new star ratings process

Here is a worked example of a facility where the Care Manager is also a Registered Nurse.

Assuming that the care manager provides direct care for 25% of their time in a 40-hour week, would result in 10 hours of care time to be recorded as Registered Nurse with the remaining 30 hours being recorded as care management.

Some tips on how to report on 24-7 shift work, for your employees could include the following:

Ensure that your systems and or processes are in place to capture the worked hours for registered nurses, remembering that what you report in the QFR excludes their leave and training time.

Having comprehensive rosters and understanding your payroll support options will help to ensure you are well placed to have accurate data to submit in the QFR.

Here we have tips on how to report on 24-7 shift work, for your contracted agency staff.

We recommend that you work closely with the Agency organisations that you contract registered nurses to ensure eventual invoices include the required information you need for the QFR

This includes asking for specific data to be included on the Agency’s invoicing information such as timesheets that show the start and finish times.

We recommend checking hours against the roster to ensure accuracy.

As a general guide for reporting, you may want to consider apportioning registered nurse time across a number of reporting fields when the registered nurses work across multiple shifts

You will need to make sure that you apportion the time appropriately and don’t double report the time worked.

This is only a guide, please try to fit it in with your circumstances

For quality assurance on the data you report, we suggest to have an internal quality assurance process on your own data

Check for accuracy and reasonableness of the data to be reported against various systems and information. Ask the question - does the information make sense and not contradict other data that will be submitted in another part of the QFR?

For example, a busy shift would show more staff on the roster resulting in higher wage costs, either in the payroll, and, or expenses to agency fees.

The Department is committed to providing support to help you submit quality data in your QFR.

Further information on the QFR, including QFR definitions and Frequently Asked Questions, can be found on the Forms Administration website at health.formsadministration.com.au

A helpdesk is also available; please send questions to qfr@stewartbrown.com.au