NDIS Personal Care Providers in Australia

Personal care under the NDIS

Personal care can be funded through a Home Care Package, the NDIS, the Commonwealth Home Support Programme, or privately.

Personal care is paid support with the daily tasks most people do for themselves: showering, dressing, grooming, toileting and moving safely around the home. The NDIS funds it as Assistance with Self-Care Activities inside the Core Supports budget, with hourly caps set in the NDIS Pricing Schedule 2026-27. A support worker delivers it in your home, at the level of help you actually want.

It is the most requested service on Carevo, named in 1,593 of the 9,483 tracked inquiries (data updated 2026-08-26). Price limits for disability support workers rose 3.95 per cent on 1 July 2026, taking the standard weekday self-care cap to $73.58 an hour (NDIS Pricing Schedule 2026-27). For older Australians, Support at Home replaced Home Care Packages on 1 November 2025 and funds the same tasks under eight classifications (Department of Health and Aged Care, 2025).

What is included in NDIS personal care services?

Personal care covers hands-on and prompted help with self-care. Day to day, a support worker helps with:

• Showering, bathing and drying, with as much or as little help as you choose
• Dressing and undressing, morning and evening routines
• Grooming: hair care, shaving, oral hygiene, nail care
• Toileting and continence aid management
• Safe transfers in and out of bed or a chair
• Help with eating and drinking at meal times
• Medication prompts at the right times

Complex needs, such as PEG feeding or severe dysphagia support, are billed under separate high-intensity items with a $79.60 weekday cap (NDIS Pricing Schedule 2026-27).

Which part of an NDIS plan funds personal care?

Personal care is funded from Core Supports, under the Assistance with Daily Life category. Core is flexible, so you can generally shift funds between daily life, consumables, transport and social participation.

Funding depends on your plan including it and on the support meeting the statutory NDIS support definition introduced on 3 October 2024 by the “Getting the NDIS Back on Track” changes. Applicable NDIS price limits govern NDIA-managed and plan-managed purchases. Self-managed participants can negotiate above or below them.

NDIS eligibility rules for personal care

Any NDIS participant whose disability affects their ability to manage self-care can ask for personal care in their plan. The planner funds it when it is reasonable and necessary, which usually means evidence of functional impact, often an occupational therapy assessment.

Becoming a participant requires applying before you turn 65, being an Australian citizen, permanent resident or protected SCV holder, and having a permanent and significant disability (NDIS, 2025). If you are over 65 and not already a participant, personal care comes through the aged care system instead.

Does Support at Home cover personal care for older people?

Yes. Personal care is a listed Support at Home service, with eight funding classifications from about $11,031.56 to $80,294 a year (Department of Health and Aged Care, 2025).

From 1 October 2026 personal care moves into clinical supports, which carry no participant contribution. Until then a means-based contribution can apply, so check your situation with your provider or My Aged Care (1800 200 422). CHSP continues as a separate program and moves to Support at Home no earlier than 1 July 2027. Both dates are from the Department of Health and Aged Care (2025).

Four checks that separate providers

The rankings above use the methodology explained at the top of this page. Your own shortlist comes down to four checks:

Registration category. Agency-managed plans can only use providers registered with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission for Assistance with Daily Personal Activities. Plan-managed and self-managed participants can also use unregistered providers, often cheaper but not audited against the NDIS Practice Standards. Check any registration claim on the Commission’s public register.

Pricing transparency. A provider should hand you a written rate schedule against the 2026-27 caps without being chased. Vague answers about weekend loadings or travel charges are a warning sign.

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.

Coverage and consistency. Ask whether the provider staffs your suburb, not just your city, and whether you get a regular worker rather than a rotating roster. With 32,033 NDIS providers listed on the platform, you do not need to accept a casual pool for intimate care.

Questions to ask a provider before signing a service agreement

1. What is your NDIS registration number and which registration groups does it cover? A good answer matches the NDIS Provider Register and covers daily personal activities.
2. Do all your support workers hold NDIS Worker Screening clearances? A good answer is yes, verifiable through the NDIS Worker Screening Database.
3. Can I see your full rate schedule, including evenings, weekends and travel? Ask for a written schedule and confirm whether the NDIS price limits apply to your funding arrangement.
4. Who covers shifts when my regular worker is sick or on leave? A good answer is a named, briefed backup process, not “whoever is free”.
5. Can I choose the gender of my support worker for intimate care, and will that be written into the agreement? A good answer is yes to both.
6. Have you ever been subject to Commission compliance action? A good answer is a straight no, consistent with the Commission’s public compliance register, or an honest account of what changed.

Where providers are available

Personal care providers on Carevo cover 8,918 suburbs nationally, with the deepest supply in the capitals. See the city pages for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, or the suburb directory below for smaller areas. NSW alone has 11,415 listed providers. Many households pair personal care with domestic assistance from the same provider, so one worker covers both.

What personal care costs across each funding system

Personal care is the most-used funded support in Australia and the pricing differs sharply by system, so the same shower visit costs different amounts depending on who pays.

High intensity applies where the support involves complex needs such as ventilation, tracheostomy care, enteral feeding or complex bowel care, and the worker holds the relevant competency. Being assessed as high intensity when the tasks do not require it is a straightforward way to exhaust a Core budget early.

What high intensity personal care means, and who can deliver it

The NDIS distinguishes standard from high intensity supports because some personal care carries clinical risk that ordinary training does not cover.

High intensity daily personal activities include complex bowel care, enteral feeding, tracheostomy management, ventilation support, urinary catheter management, subcutaneous injections, complex wound care and severe dysphagia management (NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, 2025).

The rule that matters is supervision. A support worker can perform many of these tasks, but only after a registered nurse has assessed the task, trained the worker on that specific person’s routine, signed off their competence, and set a review schedule. That delegation is what makes the higher rate legitimate and the arrangement safe.

Ask any provider quoting high intensity: which registered nurse holds oversight, when was the worker signed off, and how often is competency reviewed. A provider that cannot answer is charging a high intensity rate without the structure that justifies it. Compare home nursing providers where the clinical component is substantial.

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.