Complete Guide to High Intensity Supports (also known as High Intensity Daily Personal Activities)
High Intensity Needs: what are they?
As it reaches maturity, the NDIS now provides supports for over half a million Australians with a range of different disabilities and support needs; and there are annual funding packages ranging from thousands up to millions of dollars based on a participant’s needs. In this, there is a wide range of support needs from strategic early interventions for children all the way up to high intensity needs for participants with complex needs.
Within the NDIS jargon, high intensity support needs are known as high intensity daily personal activities, and there are eight categories of these.
Delivering these activities requires providers and their staff to have additional skills, training and risk-based procedures to implement, given the additional health risks that exist for individuals with these particular needs.
According to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, the different high intensity personal daily activity supports are:
- complex bowel care
- enteral feeding and management
- severe dysphagia management
- tracheostomy management
- urinary catheter management
- ventilator management
- subcutaneous injections
- complex wound management.
Provider Registration for High Intensity Supports
Given the risks and unique considerations for clients in relation to high intensity daily personal activities, NDIS service providers need to be registered for each of the activities before they can deliver these services. In fact, there is an additional module within the NDIS Practice Standards for disability services providers to comply with as part of the registration process.
The additional requirements and NDIS Practice Standards reflect that delivering these supports are higher risk and require different capabilities that other supports typically provided by disability support workers.
Being registered to deliver this support requires additional work by the provider including:
- addressing the needed supports in client risk assessments
- additional policies and procedures
- client-specific care plans
- client-specific training for disability support workers
- additional record keeping
- supervision by suitably qualified staff.
What do High Intensity Support Workers do?
Disability support workers who implement high intensity daily personal activities require additional training, specific both to the high intensity they are undertaking and to the unique needs of the person they are supporting.
In providing high intensity supports, disability support workers might:
- Manage continence needs
- Provide PEG or enteral tube feeding
- Administer medications (including injections)
- Monitor breathing and respond to seizures or aspiration risks
- Monitor blood sugar levels and inject insulin
- Change wound dressings.
Given the risk associated with incorrectly undertaking any of these activities, support workers will follow a support plan which is compiled by someone with the necessary skills, such as a doctor or a nurse, or other therapy clinician. The support worker is trained on that specific plan before delivering the care; and should be re-trained if the skill hasn’t been practiced for over 3 months.
Conclusion
At Hope Circle, we understand the unique needs faced by individuals with high intensity support needs, as we provide these services to a number of our existing clients.
As well as providing normal NDIS supports to SIL and in-home & community support, our team can support you with the additional physical disability and high intensity supports as needed.
Want more?
Hope Circle is a registered NDIS provider specialising in providing SIL and in-home & community support to individuals with complex disabilities.
Our team has extensive experience working with NDIS participants who have corrections or forensic histories, mental health and physical disabilities.
For more information regarding our services in Adelaide or Perth, please contact us here.