High-intensity supports
A Guide Complex Bowel Care on the NDIS
Bowel care is the intervention required to maintain a healthy bowel function. Complex bowel care refers to someone who is at risk of severe constipation or faecal incontinence and requires a support plan and team to manage this risk.
The NDIS defines bowel care as a type of Continence Support, and comes under their disability-related health supports. Depending on the type of bowel care required, the NDIS may consider the support to be a High Intensity Daily Personal Activity.
Here, we break down everything you need to know about Complex Bowel Care, and how the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) defines and funds this support.
What is Complex Bowel Care?
Various supports are available to help a person with disability manage their bowel care in the way they want and need. Support Workers will provide different types of Bowel Care depending on the person, which broadly includes these areas of support:
- Supporting a person’s bowel routine: maintaining a regular bowel routine that suits someone’s needs. This might involve scheduling specific times for bowel movements and using techniques to stimulate the bowels.
- Bowel interventions and techniques: this might include enemas or suppositories, stool softeners or laxatives, stoma (colostomy or ileostomy) care, manual bowel evacuation such as digital stimulation.
- Monitoring of bowel function: regular assessment of bowel function, including frequency, consistency, and ease of bowel movements.
- Supporting with mealtimes: supporting someone at mealtimes to ensure their diet and hydration is suitable to maintain a healthy bowel function.
- Support to attend appointments: support for a person to attend appointments to manage their bowel care, or purchase consumables related to their bowel care.
Learn more about Continence Supports.
Complex Bowel Care and NDIS funding
The NDIS may fund bowel care supports if someone’s disability means they can’t manage their bowel care on their own. The NDIS may fund the cost of essential continence consumables such as stoma bags, dressings,.
NDIS funding for Catheter Care comes under Continence Supports of the “Disability Related Health Supports” category of your funding.
You can learn more about Disability Related Health Supports on the NDIS website.
What is a Bowel Care Plan?
A bowel care plan outlines how someone should be safely supported to maintain a healthy bowel. This plan is tailored to the person’s needs, preferences and their environment. It includes information about:
- Bowel care details: The type/s of bowel care required
- Bowel care routine: Dose and timing of regular medications, positioning, frequency of bowel care, indications for bowel care, after administration routine, PRN medications, etc.
- Regular bowel function details
- Troubleshooting and emergency care: information on how to manage bowel troubleshooting and when to call an ambulance or health professional
- Recording: Where and how any bowel movements should be recorded (for example, in an App like Maslow or Seer, using a hard copy notebook, etc.)
Who writes a Bowel Care Plan?
A gastroenterologist, clinical nurse specialist (such as a stoma care nurse) or general practitioner will develop the plan.
Writing a bowel care plan is a team effort, bringing together the person with disability, their family, support workers and other services (such as recreation, education or employment).
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