Continence assessments are one of the most valuable – and most requested – skills you can bring to your NDIS nursing practice.

Many participants require continence assessments to obtain NDIS funding for continence aids ranging from simple pads to complex management by support workers.

And as you can imagine, getting NDIS continence assessments right is incredibly important. Great assessments are more likely to get adequate funding. They also provide the information that support workers need to do their jobs, and that occupational therapists, behavioural support specialists, and other therapists can integrate into their assessment and planning.

This is why I’ve organised multiple continence workshops in the upcoming Disability Nursing Summit – we need to know this, and learning directly from experienced continence nurses is so valuable. Sign up for the waitlist now.

All of this contributes to your NDIS client maintaining dignity, being able to access the community confidently, and avoiding complications like skin breakdown, chronic wounds, and infections. A good continence assessment can have a huge positive impact on someone’s life, and it’s incredibly rewarding to help that happen.

And unline many other NDIS nursing tasks, continence assessments tend to follow a more predictable schedule and format, meaning they can provide a more predictable and consistent income.

Please note that this is a living document – if you’ve got fantastic resources you’d like me to add, or any information here is no longer accurate, please let me know in the comments.

Your continence scope of practice

As they told us in university (so many times), we need to work within our scope of practice.

Our professional scope of practice covers continence management. We cover it in our degree, and many of us deal with continence every day at work, so we’re confident managing aids, deciding when to give PRN medication, and other standard tasks.

Does that mean our personal scope of practice allows us to perform a continence assessment for every NDIS participant?

No, definitely not. Many NDIS participants have complex medical, behavioural, and intellectual factors that mean they require specialised continence care. Writing a quick recommendation for pad funding is definitely NOT enough.

So it’s up to you to decide what your personal scope of practice covers, and what it doesn’t. This will decide what you can do to start with, and what sort of education you’ll need to expand your scope of practice.

Are you experienced and confident in managing continence for a person with quadriplegia who has a suprapubic catheter and requires regular enemas? Or someone with a colostomy? What about someone who experiences urinary retention, or chronic constipation with a history of impaction? Can you manage paediatric incontinence? Are you confident in providing plans that can predict the risk of, and strategies to avoid, autonomic dysreflexia, urinary retention, faecal impaction, and other medical emergencies?

These are decisions that you need to make, to ensure that you’re providing a comprehensive, safe, and accurate continence assessment for every person.

Continence Education Resources

It’s highly likely that you need to learn more about continence, and luckily there are some excellent resources available.

These range from full professional courses, to short sessions to help you learn a particular skill.

Completing these as required will give you the knowledge and skills to perform professional NDIS continence assessments.

Graduate Certificate in Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Practice

If you’d like to become a Clinical Nurse Consultant in continence and work at a very high level, completing a formal course is essential.

The Curtin University Graduate Certificate in Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Practice provides a recognised AQF certificate, and has excellent reviews.

Apply early though – places fill quickly.

Australian College of Nursing Continence subject

Don’t want to do an entire graduate certificate?

The ACN offers a single continence subject.

You can then continue on with the Graduate Certificate of Stomal Care Nursing if you like, which covers stoma and wound care, and appears quite similar overall to the Curtin certificate.

Continence Health Australia

Continence Health Australia has many short courses, including paediatric continence and how to perform an assessment. Their website is no-frills, but their learning content is excellent – here’s a small selection.

They also run professional development days, both in-person and online. These have a great line-up of workshops, and the recordings are an excellent resource.

Teesside University Certificate in Continence Management

Yes, this is a UK course, but it’s relevant and excellent. I refer to the content in here all the time. And it’s so cheap for what you get!

Teesside University Certificate in Continence Management

Melbourne University – Incontinence Management in Women

This Incontinence Management short course is also excellent, with a fantastic evidence base that you can use to extend your learning.

Coloplast Professional

Coloplast Professional provides CPD-style resources on continence, stoma care, and wounds. They also provide recorded webinars and assessment forms.

NDIA Continence Assessments Template

So you’ve got the background knowledge, you know how to do a comprehensive assessment, and now you need to write NDIS continence assessments that get your client the funding and support they need.

When it comes to writing your report, you can present it however you like.

But with the current concern about the NDIS using AI to read assessments, it’s probably best to err on the side of caution and use the recommended format.

The NDIA provides a continence assessment plan template.

The feedback I’ve heard says it’s a nightmare – the formatting is all over the place, and the categories aren’t particularly logical and encourage repetition.

I had someone send me this meme in desperation, after trying for hours to get the report to look good.

But if you don’t already have a proven approach, it might be worth gritting your teeth, working with their template, and presenting it in the way they ask. Just make sure you save your formatting edits as you go, so you end up with a document that looks the same, but is easier to use.

Justification Letters for NDIS Continence Funding

Obtaining adequate funding for your client with the justifications in your assessment is arguably the most important part.

Inadequate funding means inadequate equipment, inadequate staffing, inadequate staff training, and the flow-on result of all of those – worse outcomes for your client.

Unfortunately, there’s very little governance or guidance from the NDIS, so we don’t really know what they want from us to justify more funding. Writing an amazing assessment with clear requests for justified supports does not guarantee funding, unfortunately. And that won’t always be your fault – often the assessors just don’t provide the funding requested, for no good reason.

(I’m just a fountain of positivity here, aren’t I? Sorry about that, but it’s the reality we work in.)

Coloplast has a funding request tool that’s quick and easy to use. Currently, they claim a 75% first-time approval rate. View an example finished letter here.

If your application does not get approved, Coloplast’s nurses will assist you to appeal or the tribunal.

And while your client waits for the NDIS decision, Coloplast will supply product to them for free for up to six months, which is a really great way of filling in that awful waiting-for-funding gap.

Obviously, Coloplast is a company, and so the form populates with their products. But if you have another product that your client already uses, or would suit them better, you can export the form as a Word document, and add it in.

Access the Coloplast NDIS Funding Justification Tool here

Ready to do NDIS Continence Assessments now?

I hope that’s given you all you need to brush up your skills and produce some amazing NDIS continence assessments that enable participants to live comfortably and safely, and live their life with confidence and dignity.

As mentioned in the introduction, this is a living document – if you’ve got fantastic resources you’d like me to add, or any information here is no longer accurate, please let me know in the comments. I’ll update it as soon as I’m able.

And don’t forget to join the Disability Nursing Summit waitlist to learn directly from experienced continence nurses, and learn a wide range of NDIS nursing skills from people who are actually doing it.

See you there!