Home Nursing Services in Australia: Cost and Providers

Where can I find home nursing services near me?

Approved clinical nursing under Support at Home has no participant contribution, within the care plan and available budget. The provider price still affects how many hours the budget can buy. Ask for an itemised quote and confirm the nurse level required.

How to choose a provider for this service

The list above is ranked using the criteria explained in the methodology above it. Four checks matter specifically when you compare nursing providers.

Registration. Confirm the individual nurse holds current AHPRA registration and check the organisation against the NDIS Commission or My Aged Care registers, not just its own website.

Response time. Post-hospital and palliative referrals often can’t wait. Benchmark a provider’s actual reply speed against the response-time table further down this page rather than a stated turnaround.

Coverage. Nursing is named in 324 of the 9,483 tracked inquiries on Carevo, but nurses aren’t rostered in every suburb; confirm the provider has clinical staff actually working in your area before you commit.

What does a registered nurse do on a home visit?

A registered nurse home visit usually runs 30 to 90 minutes and covers tasks needing clinical judgement: wound assessment and dressing, medication administration and review, injections, catheter and stoma care, continence assessment, vital signs and blood sugar monitoring, and post-surgical checks.

RNs and ENs have different scopes of practice. An RN assesses, plans and evaluates care independently and takes on higher-acuity work such as complex wound regimens, IV therapy, PEG feeding and palliative symptom support. An EN works under the supervision of an RN and delivers much of the routine hands-on care, dressings, medication prompts and observations, at a lower hourly rate. Both must hold current registration, checkable free on the public AHPRA register (AHPRA, 2026). A well-run provider rosters an EN for stable visits and an RN for assessments and anything that might change.

What does a wound care nurse do?

Wound care is the most common reason for a home nursing referral. A wound care nurse assesses the wound and what is driving it, selects and applies dressings, measures healing between visits, and escalates to the GP or a wound specialist when healing stalls. At home this covers surgical wounds after discharge, venous leg ulcers, pressure injuries, skin tears and diabetic foot wounds. Medication management is the other staple: setting up and checking dose administration aids, administering scheduled medicines including injections, watching for side effects, and reconciling the medication list after a hospital stay changes it. Both look routine, and both are where clinical judgement prevents a readmission; the post-hospital care page covers the wider recovery period.

Is 24 hour nursing care available at home?

Yes, though continuous RN cover is the intensive end of the market, used for ventilation, tracheostomy care, unstable seizure management and similar needs; see complex care for how those packages are built. Most people searching for 24 hour nursing care need a layered arrangement instead: nurse visits at set times, support workers through the day, and an overnight worker with an RN on call. Under NDIS pricing, an inactive overnight sleepover is billed at $311.79 a night, and active weeknight support at up to $82.57 an hour, far less than rostering a nurse around the clock. The overnight care page compares sleepover and active-night arrangements in detail.

Availability

Carevo lists nursing among 32,033 NDIS providers and 4,325 aged care providers across 8,918 suburbs nationally, with records updated 2026-08-26. The listings on this page also cover lower-intensity nursing funded through a CHSP plan; veterans with a DVA Gold or White Card can compare options on the DVA-funded home care page.

What a home nurse can do that a support worker cannot

The line matters because it decides which budget pays and who you should be calling.

A registered or enrolled nurse works within a clinical scope: wound assessment and dressing, medication administration including injections, catheter and stoma care, continence assessment, PEG and enteral feeding, diabetes management including insulin, post-operative monitoring, palliative symptom support, and clinical assessment that escalates to a GP or hospital.

A support worker delivers personal care and daily living support: showering, dressing, meals, mobility assistance and prompting someone to take medication they self-administer. A support worker cannot administer a scheduled medication, dress a complex wound or make a clinical judgement.

Between the two sits delegated care. A registered nurse can assess a task, train a support worker on one person’s specific routine, sign off their competence and review it periodically. That is how tasks like PEG feeding or stable catheter care are often delivered day to day at a support worker rate rather than a nursing rate, with nursing oversight retained. Ask any provider quoting a low rate for a clinical task exactly who performs it and who supervises.

Registered nurse or enrolled nurse: which do you need?

Both are AHPRA-registered, and the difference is scope and supervision (AHPRA).

An enrolled nurse holds a diploma and works under the supervision of a registered nurse. Suitable for stable, routine clinical care: established wound dressings, medication administration within their scope, observations. Capped at $103.44 an hour on a weekday daytime under the NDIS (NDIS Pricing Schedule 2026-27).

A registered nurse holds a degree, works independently and carries assessment and care-planning responsibility. Needed where the situation requires clinical judgement: a new or deteriorating wound, an unstable condition, medication review, care plan development, or supervising delegated tasks. Capped at $128.05 an hour on a weekday daytime.

Most arrangements are layered rather than one or the other. A registered nurse assesses and writes the plan, an enrolled nurse or a trained support worker delivers the routine visits, and the RN reviews. Paying an RN rate for every visit when the plan is stable is a common way a nursing budget runs out early.

Nursing supply in Australia

Carevo lists 11,331 providers offering nursing across 8,918 suburbs, which is 32.7 per cent of the 34,600 providers on the platform. Of those, 9,314 accept NDIS funding, 3,132 accept aged care package funding, 1,903 accept DVA and 3,150 accept private payment.

Carevo measures whether a provider accepts an enquiry, not when care starts or a practitioner contacts you. Confirm current capacity and a start date directly. How Carevo measures enquiry acceptance.

How this page is compiled

The provider rankings and figures on this page come from Carevo platform records, including provider registrations, measured response times and coverage, together with the cited official sources. Carevo is an Australian platform that connects families with NDIS and aged care providers. Carevo does not deliver care itself.

Funding sources and checks

Check the current NDIA pricing arrangements and Support at Home program rules for the proposed service. Funding depends on the approved support and available budget; a Carevo listing is not approval. Confirm availability and a start date directly with the provider.