Writing an NDIS report

A progress report is written inside the plan period and reports against the goals in the words the plan uses. A plan reassessment report carries the funding argument for the next plan period, so it also establishes the participant's current functional baseline. An assistive technology assessment, a home modification report and a specialist behaviour support plan are separate documents.

On a contested decision the report is evidence at the Administrative Review Tribunal. Confirm the reassessment date with the participant or their support coordinator, because a report that arrives after the delegate has decided goes to the file for the next plan.

Consent to record sits with the participant wherever they can give it, and capacity is decision-specific. Record the outcome in their file. Wording for that conversation is at consent to record a consultation.

For a child it comes from the parent or guardian, and for an adult who cannot consent, from the person with authority under state or territory law or from a nominee appointed under the scheme. Everyone else in the room is told capture is running, and third-party detail with no bearing on the participant comes out of the draft before signing.

Four things come out of the assessment: performance in each funded activity area, the level and type of assistance each task needed, the setting, and a standardised measure administered under conditions that can be repeated at the end of the block. Record the date each measure was administered. A measure introduced for the first time at reassessment establishes a level and evidences no change.

A participant who communicates through a device, key word sign, gesture or behaviour leaves almost nothing in a voice transcript. Narrate what you observe as it happens, in the terms you would write it.

Notes written as a record of treatment delivered carry almost no evidence of function, and copy-forward entries leave no trajectory across the block. Five fields, recorded the same way every time, keep the report writable.

• The level and type of assistance for each task attempted, in the same words each time.
• The setting, treatment room or the participant's own kitchen.
• Variability: what the participant managed on the day against their usual range.
• Who reported anything you did not observe: carer, support worker or teacher.
• The plan goal worked on, named the way the plan names it.

The baseline evidences what the participant does now: in which settings, with what assistance, how often, how long the task takes, and what happens when the assistance is not there. The six activity areas the Act uses when it tests functional capacity are communication, social interaction, learning, mobility, self-care and self-management.

Reduced dynamic sitting balance is a clinical finding. Its functional statement names the daily task it affects, the person or equipment needed for that task to happen safely, the time it adds, and what the household does when nobody is available.

The same measure appears at both ends of the block, administered under comparable conditions, with both results and both dates. Say what the change means for something the participant does at home, at school or in the community. Where the support held a level that would otherwise have declined, name that as the change, and state what is still outstanding.

The request is stated in the units the plan will use: hours against a named therapy support, or a specific item, with the outcome each is expected to produce. Since the 2024 amendments the Act works from a published list of what counts as an NDIS support, and a support outside that list cannot be funded. A report that evidences progress and says nothing about continuing need reads as a need resolved.

Name the daily activities that stop or become unsafe without the support, who is affected, and how often. An adjective such as high risk carries nothing on its own.

A private allied health practice is covered by the Privacy Act 1988 whatever its turnover, and the Australian Privacy Principles give the participant a right of access to the health information held about them. Separate what you observed from what you concluded.

Where the participant disagrees, record their view alongside yours and leave yours in place. The report reaches the agency through the participant, their support coordinator, or the agency's own channels.

The NDIS Code of Conduct applies to every provider under the scheme, registered or not, and requires honesty and integrity in delivering supports. Keep the session notes for as long as your state or territory health records legislation requires; in New South Wales and Victoria, a private health provider holding information collected while the person was under 18 keeps it until that person turns 25.