What an NDIS Auditor Asks For on High Intensity Supports (and What Satisfies It)

The actual test, in the auditor's own instrument

In short: the NDIS Practice Standards and Quality Indicators sets out what an auditor checks, support by support, and every one of the eight HIDPA indicators has the same two-part structure: training specific to the participant, and training delivered by the right person.

The clearest full example is severe dysphagia's indicator, which reads: "Each worker responsible for providing severe dysphagia management to participants has received training, relating specifically to each participant's needs, managing any severe dysphagia related incident and the high intensity support skills descriptor for severe dysphagia management, delivered by an appropriately qualified health practitioner with expertise in severe dysphagia management."

The other seven follow the same pattern: training relating specifically to each participant's needs and the relevant skills descriptor, delivered by an appropriately qualified health practitioner or a person who meets that descriptor. Every one of the eight requires both halves. Person-specific, and delivered by the right person. Neither half substitutes for the other.

What a completion certificate alone doesn't satisfy

This is the gap that catches providers out, and it's worth being direct about it, because it's an easy trap to fall into with good intentions. General, online, knowledge-based training, on its own, gives an auditor neither half of what the indicator asks for. It isn't specific to any one participant, because it's built to teach the support in general. And it isn't delivered by a health practitioner or a person who meets the descriptor for that specific worker, because it's a course, not an assessed session.

That doesn't make general training worthless. It's genuinely useful, and the document explicitly anticipates trainers building it (p3). But a provider who treats a library of general high intensity courses as their whole HIDPA training obligation is going to find, at audit, that they're missing the person-specific piece and the delivered-by-the-right-person piece entirely. That's a finding against the provider, not against whoever built the course. It's the reason it matters so much to know which tier of training you're actually holding evidence for, which we cover in the guide on the four tiers of high intensity training.

What actually satisfies each part

Break the indicator down and each element has a distinct evidence answer.

General knowledge, that the worker holds the foundation the descriptor describes. A completion record showing the course, the date, and what standard or descriptor it maps to. This is the layer general online training genuinely covers.

Training specific to the participant's needs. A record showing training was delivered against the actual, current support plan for that specific person, not a generic version of the procedure. This has to be able to name the participant, or at minimum tie clearly to their specific plan.

Delivered by the right person. A record naming who delivered the training, and how they qualify, either as an appropriately qualified health practitioner or as a person who meets the relevant skills descriptor. For severe dysphagia specifically, that name has to be a health practitioner with expertise in severe dysphagia management, with no alternative (p18).

Current skills and knowledge. Some form of review or reassessment record, on whatever cycle your service has justified. It doesn't have to be exactly twelve months, but it does have to exist and be able to explain itself. We cover why that number is a recommendation rather than a rule in the guide on the annual review and three-month rule.

Documented and regularly audited. All of the above, held somewhere your service can actually produce it on request, for a named worker, on the day an auditor asks.

The epilepsy carve-out, and why it matters at audit

If your service supports someone with epilepsy, keep that training's mapping honest. Epilepsy and seizure support is real, detailed Commission guidance, but it doesn't formally link to HIDPA (p44), and it isn't part of registration group 104. Mapping an epilepsy course to Module 1 in your evidence pack is a small, checkable error, and it's exactly the kind an auditor working descriptor by descriptor will notice. We go through the full reasoning, and where epilepsy does map instead, in the guide on the eight descriptors.

A simple pre-audit check

Pick one worker who delivers one of the eight high intensity supports, and try to produce, on the spot, all five pieces above: the general course completion, the person-specific training record, the name and qualifying basis of who delivered it, the currency check, and where all of it is actually filed. If any piece is missing or scattered across a clinician's notebook, a training spreadsheet and someone's memory, that's the gap worth closing before an auditor finds it for you.

CORA measures and evidences capability. It does not certify competence. What we can show a provider is what the general knowledge layer looks like as a record, mapped to the NDIS Practice Standards, and how Support Observations lets a service hold the record of a practitioner-led or assessor-led session once it's actually happened, so the evidence pack doesn't have to be assembled from scratch on the morning of an audit.

This guide is general information for NDIS providers, not legal or compliance advice. Always check the current requirements directly with the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, because the detail does change. Sourced directly from NDIS Practice Standards: High intensity support skills descriptors, Guidance for NDIS providers and auditors, November 2022, Version 3, and NDIS Practice Standards and Quality Indicators, November 2021, Version 4, both NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.