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High Intensity Skills Training

Train your team. Sign off competency.
Evidence your obligations, before the audit.

High intensity skills training teaches support workers, carers and participants to safely carry out high intensity daily personal activities, and ends in a formal competency sign-off. An AHPRA-registered nurse delivers the training against the participant’s own plan, then assesses each person and records whether they are competent.

Under the NDIS Practice Standards, workers supporting someone with high intensity daily personal activities must have training that relates specifically to that participant’s needs and the relevant high intensity support skills descriptor. Our nurses deliver that training and do the competency assessment.

For referrers and Support Coordinators

Funding for
Skills training.

Providers can engage us directly. Training your workforce is usually organisational work rather than a participant’s funded support, so in most cases we invoice the provider.

Where training is specific to one participant, it may be funded through that participant’s NDIS plan, depending on how the plan is set up. Both pathways are common and we can talk you through which applies to your situation.
Not sure which applies? Call 1800 678 647 and we will work it out with you before anyone commits to anything.

What We Train

Five high intensity daily personal activities, plus two supports that sit outside that list but come up constantly for support teams. Additional supports are available on request. Ask us what you need and we will tell you whether we can deliver it.

01

Enteral Feeding Support Training

Safe delivery of feeds, fluids and medication through a PEG or PEJ tube, plus site care and what to watch for. Training covers the participant’s own equipment and their own regime, because the general principles are not what a worker needs at seven in the morning. Signed off per worker.

02

Epilepsy and Seizure Support Training

Recognising seizure types, responding safely, recording what happened, and administering emergency medication such as midazolam where that is part of the participant’s plan. This is the training support teams most often tell us they feel underprepared for, and the one where getting it wrong matters most.

03

Urinary Catheter Support Training

Safe day to day catheter management for support staff. Indwelling and suprapubic catheters, care of the site, hygiene, drainage, and the signs that mean stop and call someone. Trained against the participant’s own catheter and routine.

04

Complex Bowel Care Training

The participant’s bowel care routine delivered safely and with dignity. What is used, when, how, and what to do when the routine does not go the way it usually does. Where support workers deliver this care, the training is built directly on participants support plan.

05

Subcutaneous Injection Training

Safe administration technique, sites and rotation, sharps handling and disposal, and accurate recording. Covers the specific medication and device the participant actually uses, not a generic demonstration.

06

Asthma and Anaphylaxis

These sit outside the high intensity daily personal activities list, but support teams need them constantly. Recognising an attack or a reaction, responding, using the device correctly, and knowing when to call an ambulance. Worth having across a team rather than in one person.
INSIDE THE CLINIC

How the Training Works​

We train support workers, carers, and participants themselves where that is appropriate.

Training happens in clinic, at your location, or at the participant’s home, whichever suits the team and the activity. Some of it can be delivered remotely, and that depends on the activity and on what the person already knows and can do. We will tell you honestly which parts have to be face to face.

A nurse delivers the training against the participant’s plan, then formally assesses each person and records the outcome. You get the competency documentation for your files.

Documentation review, remotely. We also review how plans are being put into practice. If you have plans in place and you want to know whether what is written matches what is actually happening, we can look at the documentation and tell you. Useful before an audit. More useful well before an audit.

Competency renewals. Competency is not permanent. Workers leave, plans change, and skills fade when they are not used. We handle renewals as part of the same relationship rather than treating each round as a new engagement.

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NDIS

What the NDIS Practice Standards Ask For

For each participant who relies on high intensity daily personal activities, the quality indicators say the participant is involved in developing their own plan, their health status is reviewed regularly by an appropriately qualified health practitioner with their consent, and workers supporting them have training that relates specifically to that participant’s needs and the relevant high intensity support skills descriptor.

Worth being straight about one thing, because some providers are told otherwise. The Commission does not require these supports to be delivered by a nurse. Training can come from an appropriately qualified health practitioner or from someone who meets the skills descriptor. What it does require is that the training is participant-specific and that you can evidence it.

That is what we deliver, and what the competency record is for.

Optimum NDIS
Referrals.

Optimum NDIS
Referrals.

If you are a Support Coordinator, LAC officer, Plan Manager or another health care professional and you would like to submit a referral for one of your participants, please select one of the below options.

a speech pathologist works with toddlers and children who deal with stuttering,
START THE CONVERSATION

Get in Touch.

12 clinics across NSW & Tasmania

Email us

hello@opt.net.au

Speak to us

1800 678 647

Where to Access High Intensity Skills Training

Nurse-led screening may be available in clinic, at home, or by telehealth. The right option depends on the screen being completed and whether the nurse needs to observe something in person.
COMMON QUESTIONS

Common Questions About High Intensity Skills Training

What is a high intensity daily personal activity?
It is the NDIS term for personal care that carries higher risk and needs verified worker competency. The Commission lists eight: complex bowel care, enteral feeding and management, severe dysphagia management, tracheostomy management, urinary catheter management, ventilator management, subcutaneous injections, and complex wound management. We train five of those eight. We do not deliver tracheostomy management, severe dysphagia management or complex wound management.
Support workers, carers, and participants themselves where that is what the participant wants. Most of our training is for provider teams, but family carers doing the same care at home need the same skills and often have had less support to get them.
The nurse assesses each person doing the activity, against that participant’s plan, and records whether they demonstrated they can do it safely. It is an assessment, not an attendance record. Someone can attend the training and not be signed off, and that is the point of doing it properly.
It depends on the activity, the worker and your own policies. Skills fade when they are not used, workers move on, and plans change. We will recommend a renewal cycle for your situation.
Some of it. It depends on the activity and on what the person already knows and can do. Theory and documentation review work well remotely. Anything where the nurse needs to watch someone physically perform the task, on the participant’s own equipment, needs to happen in person. We will tell you which is which before you book.
Ours are. The Commission’s position is that training should come from an appropriately qualified health practitioner or a person who meets the high intensity support skills descriptor, and it states that these supports are not required to be delivered by a nurse. We use nurses because the competency assessment sits alongside care planning and clinical review, and it is simpler when the same organisation does all three.
CLINICALLY REVIEWED BY

Renata Bell

RN, BNSc, GradCertPH, Cert II Business
HEAD OF CLINICAL DEVELOPMENT (Nursing and compliance), OPTIMUM HEALTH SOLUTIONS
Renata is a Registered Nurse with extensive experience across disability, aged care, emergency, urgent care, community, primary health care and clinical governance. Renata has worked in various clinical settings in Australia and the UK and has a passion for Chronic and Complex Healthcare. She reviews all Nursing content for clinical accuracy and compliance.

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