What is Funded Under My NDIS Plan?
All services and products accessed through your NDIS plan must be deemed “reasonable and necessary”
Reasonable and necessary supports
The NDIS funds a range of supports and services which may include education, employment, social participation, independence, living arrangements and health and wellbeing. In order to be considered reasonable and necessary, support or service:
- must be related to a participant’s disability
- must not include day-to-day living costs not related to your disability support needs, such as groceries
- should represent value for money
- must be likely to be effective and work for the participant, and
- should take into account support given to you by other government services, your family, carers, networks and the community
Stated Supports
Although funding under your NDIS plan is largely flexible, there are certain services that are deemed ‘stated items’ under the NDIS. This means that you can only access these using your funding if they have been specifically approved and written into your plan. It’s important to request these at your planning meeting if you require these services. A quote for these services is then provided to the NDIS for approval and the funding is then made available to use. They include:
Meal preparation & delivery – This support item is for assistance with the cost of the preparation and delivery of food to participants who are unable to do this for themselves, and are not in receipt of other supports that would meet the same need. The cost of the food itself is not covered by the NDIS. Up until the 1st March 2022, meal preparation and delivery was a stated item that required a quote for approval. This is now not the case and core funding can be used flexibly for this, although the participant must be able to demonstrate that due to their disability they require assistance with meal preparation.
Linen services – This support item is for the provision of clean linen to a participant who is unable to do their own laundry without assistance.
Specialised Driver Training – This support item provides driving lessons required due to the impact of a participant’s disability. This item should be in response to an assessment by a specialist Driver Trained Occupational Therapist
Assistance from Live-in Carer – This support item provides for a person who lives in the house of, or travels with the participant and provides assistance with, and/or supervision of, personal tasks of daily life to develop skills of the participant to live as autonomously as possible.
On-Call Overnight Monitoring – This support item provides for overnight on-call assistance (either onsite or off-site) with, or supervision of, personal tasks of daily living.
Specialised Transport – This support item provides for specialised transport services for a participant to a school, educational facility, employment, or the community.
It applies to any day of the week and on public holidays. This support item is for an eight-hour period and includes up to one hour of active support provided to the participant for the duration of the period.