For some people with disability, wound and pressure care is already part of day-to-day support. It might involve regular skin checks, pressure management or keeping on top of dressings as part of a broader routine. When these supports are ongoing, questions often come up about where they sit and how they’re funded.
Some nursing and wound care supports can be included in your NDIS Plan when they relate to your disability and everyday support needs. Others are treated as medical care and sit with the health system. The line between the two is not always obvious, particularly when care happens at home or over a long period of time.
What are nursing supports?
Nursing supports are specialist supports that help you manage disability-related health needs at home when extra skills or training are needed to support daily life.
Depending on your needs, the NDIS may fund visits from an enrolled or registered nurse, assistance to develop or review a wound care plan and support to carry out the plan at home.
Nursing supports may include help to:
- Take medicine
- Receive food through a PEG tube
- Change a catheter
- Manage and prevent wounds.
What are wound care supports?
Wound care supports help prevent or manage wounds when your disability makes this difficult. These supports are ongoing, rather than short-term medical treatment.
The NDIS may fund:
- Support to dress and manage chronic wounds
- Monitoring skin that is at risk
- Pressure injury prevention
- Help with repositioning
- Compression garments for circulation
- Wound care items such as dressings or bandages
- Assessment and planning by nurses and/or allied health professionals.
To help reduce the risk of wounds, the NDIS may also fund equipment such as pressure cushions or mattresses, pressure relief devices or assistive technology that supports safe movement and positioning.
Who may be eligible for NDIS-funded wound or nursing supports?
You may be able to access supports if:
- Your wound is caused by your disability
- Your disability makes it hard to manage wound care independently
- You need regular or daily help rather than occasional help.
This may apply if you:
- Have limited mobility
- Use a wheelchair
- Have reduced sensation
- Cannot reposition yourself easily
- Have an intellectual or cognitive disability.
Important. If your day-to-day disability-related wound care needs become acute, the NDIA will direct you to a hospital or other healthcare setting.
Where these supports sit in your NDIS Plan.
To access these supports, you’ll usually need evidence from a health professional such as a GP, nurse or allied health provider that explains how the support relates to your disability and everyday life. If approved, nursing and wound care supports may be funded across different parts of your NDIS Plan, which can include:
- Core supports: for help with daily activities and personal care, as well as low-cost, everyday consumables like dressings
- Capacity building: for assessments, planning and training
- Assistive technology: for equipment that helps prevent or manage wounds.
Good to know. Daily care can sometimes be funded under either Core or Capacity Building.
What the NDIS won’t fund.
The NDIS works alongside the health system and generally won’t fund wound or nursing care that is medical, short-term or not related to your disability.
This usually includes:
- Acute wound care, such as cuts, burns or wounds from recent surgery
- Post-operative or hospital-in-the-home nursing care
- Medical treatment, diagnostic tests and medications
- GP or specialist appointments
- General nursing consumables.
For example, if you need nursing care at home following surgery that is not related to your disability, this support is usually funded through the health system, not your NDIS Plan.
See the NDIS ‘Would We Fund It’ guides on nursing in the home and wound care supports for more details.
How Leap in! can help.
Understanding whether a support sits with the NDIS or the health system can feel confusing, especially when needs change.
The Leap in! Crew can help you understand your NDIS Plan, manage budgets and payments and prepare for conversations with providers, LACs or planners. Call us on 1300 05 78 78, email us at [email protected] or chat with us online at www.leapin.com.au.
