High Intensity Support
NDIS high intensity support
Understanding High Intensity Supports Under the NDIS
Navigating complex healthcare and disability support needs requires an elevated level of clinical oversight, precision, and dedication.
High intensity supports are services provided to individuals with complex care needs, as outlined in the NDIS Provider Registration and Practice Standards. These supports involve tasks that require a higher level of skill, specialised training, or supervision to ensure care is delivered safely and to the highest standard.
When a participant requires high intensity support, standard care routines are no longer sufficient. Because these services often cross into clinical or highly specialised territory, the NDIS enforces strict quality indicators. Providers must demonstrate that their support staff possess the specific competencies, practical training, and ongoing supervision required to manage complex health profiles without compromising participant safety or dignity.
What Characterises High Intensity Support?
High intensity supports are typically triggered when a participant’s medical or physical condition carries inherent risks that require daily, specialized management. Unlike general daily living assistance, these tasks often require support workers to undergo rigorous, evidence-based training—frequently overseen or signed off by registered nurses or allied health professionals.
Key areas of high intensity support include, but are not limited to:
Complex Bowel Care: Management of severe constipation, specialized charting, and the administration of prescribed medication or enemas under strict clinical guidelines.
Enteral (PEG) Feeding and Management: Assisting participants who receive nutrition and hydration via a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) or nasogastric tube, including formula preparation, pump operation, and stoma site care.
Severe Dysphagia Management: Providing mealtime bariatric and texture-modified food and fluid support for individuals at high risk of choking or aspiration.
Tracheostomy Care and Ventilation: Managing airway clearance, suctioning, and the monitoring of specialized ventilation equipment to ensure stable respiratory function.
Subcutaneous Injections: Safe administration of required medications into the fatty tissue layer, requiring strict adherence to hygiene, dosage, and timing protocols.
Complex Wound Management: Under the direction of a clinical nurse, assisting with dressing changes, monitoring for signs of infection, and ensuring skin integrity is maintained.
High Risk Seizure Management: Implementing complex epilepsy management plans, recognizing distinct seizure types, administering midazolam or other rescue medications, and implementing emergency protocols.
The Importance of Rigorous Practice Standards
Because high intensity supports carry a higher level of clinical risk, the NDIS Commission sets forth definitive guidelines to safeguard participants. For providers, this means care cannot simply be assigned to any available worker.
To deliver these services safely and compliantly, a quality provider must ensure:
Specialised Staff Training: Workers must complete specific competency assessments tailored exactly to the participant’s unique medical plan.
Clinical Oversight: Care plans and high-risk procedures are developed, reviewed, and supervised by qualified healthcare professionals (such as Registered Nurses).
Continuous Risk Monitoring: Regular audits, health reviews, and meticulous record-keeping ensure that any changes in a participant’s condition are caught and addressed immediately.
By strictly adhering to these elevated benchmarks, providers ensure that individuals with complex care needs can remain living safely in their homes and communities, fully supported by our local team capable of handling any challenge with professionalism and skill.
Who can receive High Intensity Support?
Participants who have disability-related health needs and are assessed as requiring support with High Intensity Daily Personal Activities due to the complexity of their care requirements.
What skills will High Intensity Support Workers have?
Support workers who have been trained and supervised by a registered nurse or qualified health professional to develop the skills needed for complex medical care tasks.
what supports are offered?
• Complex bowel care • Enteral feeding and management • Severe dysphagia management • Tracheostomy care • Urinary catheter management • Ventilator management • Subcutaneous injections (e.g., diabetes management) • Complex wound management
Who can receive High Intensity Support?
Participants who have disability-related health needs and are assessed as requiring support with High Intensity Daily Personal Activities due to the complexity of their care requirements.
Bright Journey’s High Intensity Support
skills
- Understand the support plan, confirms it is the correct and current
plan for the participant, and checks the participant’s specific support
requirements for example: timing, frequency and type of support. - Checks with the participant on their expectations, capacity and preferences for being involved in the delivery of support.
- Checks with the participant on their preferences for communication, including the use of aids, devices and/or methods.
- Communicates with the participant using participant-specific communication strategies, communication aids, devices, or resources, including resources in the participant’s preferred language.
- Prepares for hygiene and infection control and required equipment for care.
knowledge
- Understanding of the NDIS Code of Conduct and Practice Standards..
- The role of Support Workers in assisting participants to lead the life they choose.
- Understanding common and participant-specific communication
supports, for example, assistive technologies, alternative and
augmentative communication, communication devices. - Principles of proper practice of High Intensity care including use of appropriate Personal Protective Equipment
(PPE) and equipment required for care. - Scope of worker responsibilities including supervision and delegation
arrangements.
If you or someone you know is in need of NDIS High Intensity Support, you can refer them to our services with one simple form. We will ensure that your loved one will receive the personal and individual support that they deserve.
“One person caring about another represents life’s greatest value”
– Jim Rohn