Continence products that are NDIS supports include products for urinary or faecal incontinence, such as:
- pads or nappies
- bedding or chair protection
- liners or shields
- anal plugs.
We may also fund continence products if you have a catheter because of your disability, including:
- collection bags
- bottles
- straps or tape.
If we fund continence products in your plan, we’ll fund standard postage costs for delivery.
We may fund other supports relating to your continence, including:
- supports and services to manage your continence, such as continence assessments and reviews by a continence nurse or other qualified health professional
- training for support workers, family and friends to support you with your continence where appropriate.
Learn more about these supports in What if you need help to manage your continence support needs?
Learn more about How we decide what disability-related health supports we fund.
Continence supports that are not NDIS supports
We don’t fund continence supports for health issues that are not related to your disability support needs.
Under NDIS laws, there are things we can’t fund or provide.
Learn more about Supports that are not NDIS supports.
What if you need help to manage your continence support needs?
You might be able to manage your continence needs yourself. Or you may need help to use your continence products.
You may also need help to clean or change your catheter or stoma if you have these.
We can fund supports if your incontinence relates to your disability.
A continence nurse can do a continence assessment to help work out what continence supports you need.
This includes:
- preparing your continence plan
- working out the continence products you need
- reviewing your continence plan.
The support we fund depends on your individual continence support needs and the person with the most appropriate skills to help you.
You may need support from a qualified health professional or support worker to manage your continence.
We can fund a nurse to change or clean your catheter. Or a support worker to clean your stoma or change your stoma bag.
A support worker, family or friend may be able to provide some supports.
We can fund a registered nurse or other qualified health professional to train them to support you with some of your continence needs.
Learn more about who we will fund to support you with your continence needs.
What about continence supports for children?
Children and young people with disability or developmental delay often need help every day with toileting.
You, your family, or carers will generally look after your child’s daily toileting support needs.
We may fund continence supports in your child’s plan if they need substantially more help with continence supports than a child of the same age who doesn’t have a disability or developmental delay.
We can only fund these supports if they meet the NDIS funding criteria for your child.
If your child needs a disability-related health support, we’ll think about:
- your child’s individual situation
- your capacity to provide support and any risks to your wellbeing if you provide support
- what informal supports are available
- what is reasonable for family and informal supports to provide
- what mainstream and community supports are available.
For children who are 5 years of age or older we may fund:
- continence supports for use throughout the day
- continence supports at night, like nappies, when they are toilet trained during the day
- a bed wetting alarm which a continence nurse may recommend.
We can only fund these supports if we have evidence they’re related to your child’s disability.
Evidence can include a continence assessment. The assessment must be completed by a continence nurse or other qualified health professional.
In rare situations, we may include funding for continence supports for children younger than 5 for medical conditions related to their disability.
For example:
- if we have evidence your child will always need help to manage their continence due to their disability-related medical condition
- if their continence support needs are more costly due to their disability-related medical condition
- if they have higher care needs than other children of the same age, like using disposable urinary catheters.
- Learn more about development delay in Our Guideline about our early childhood approach.
Learn more about continence supports in our Would we fund it guides for continence consumables and early childhood continence consumables.