Managing a Workforce Across NDIS and Aged Care: What Changes and What Doesn't

Why dual-sector providers exist

Many clients in Australia receive both NDIS-funded disability supports and aged care-funded services. A person with a disability who is also ageing may have an active NDIS plan and a Support at Home allocation running simultaneously. Some providers follow their clients across both funding streams rather than referring out.

Workers frequently cross the same boundary. A support worker employed by a disability provider may deliver NDIS shifts Monday to Wednesday and home care shifts Thursday and Friday. This happens because the practical skills required in community support work transfer across sectors, and because providers find it operationally efficient to use an existing trained workforce for new service types.

The problem is that the two sectors run under different compliance frameworks, different awards, different incident reporting schemes, and different billing systems. Operating across both without a clear system for each compliance dimension creates risk at every point where the frameworks diverge.

The four compliance frameworks in parallel

A dual-sector provider is simultaneously subject to:

NDIS Practice Standards (regulated by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission). Applies to all NDIS-registered providers. Covers rights and responsibilities, governance, support delivery, support provision environment, and specialist support categories.

Aged Care Quality Standards (regulated by the ACQSC). Applies to all approved aged care providers. The seven strengthened standards cover the person, governance, care and services, environment, clinical care, food and nutrition, and workforce.

SCHADS Award MA000100. The industrial award that covers most community-based support workers, including NDIS support workers and home care workers working in clients' homes.

Aged Care Award MA000018. The award for workers in residential aged care facilities. If your organisation operates a residential facility as well as community programs, this award applies to residential workers.

Each framework has its own inspection cycle, its own documentation requirements, and its own reporting obligations. The compliance calendars do not align. An NDIS audit and an ACQSC quality review can occur in the same month with no coordination between the two regulators.

Worker screening: which check applies to which shift

This is one of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of dual-sector operation.

NDIS Worker Screening Check: Required for workers in risk-assessed roles under the NDIS. The check is administered by each state and territory's worker screening unit and produces a clearance number. It applies to NDIS-funded shifts only.

National Police Check: Required for workers delivering aged care services. The check must be no more than three years old. It applies to aged care-funded shifts.

The two checks are not interchangeable. An NDIS clearance does not satisfy the aged care National Police Check requirement. A current National Police Check does not replace the NDIS Worker Screening Check for NDIS work.

A worker who delivers both NDIS and aged care shifts needs both. Your system needs to track both check types, both dates, and both expiry timelines per worker.

Award classification per shift, not per worker

The industrial award that applies to a shift depends on the setting and nature of the work, not on which award the worker is primarily classified under.

A worker primarily employed under SCHADS for NDIS and community work will also be under SCHADS if they deliver home care services in a client's home. The award does not change because the funding source changes.

Where classification complexity arises is when the same worker delivers shifts in a residential aged care facility (Aged Care Award MA000018) and in the community (SCHADS Award MA000100) in the same pay period. Each shift type attracts the relevant award's rates and conditions. This is not theoretical -- it happens when a provider has both home care and residential operations.

Managing this in payroll requires your system to know the award classification for each shift, not just a single classification per worker. Any system that applies one pay rate to a worker regardless of shift type will produce wrong results for workers who cross settings.

Incident reporting: two separate schemes

NDIS incidents and aged care incidents go to different regulators with different timeframes.

NDIS reportable incidents go to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. Serious reportable incidents must be reported within 24 hours. The NDIS reportable incident categories include death, serious injury, abuse, neglect, unlawful sexual contact, and use of unauthorised restrictive practices.

Aged Care SIRS incidents go to the ACQSC. Priority 1 incidents (unexpected deaths, serious injuries, assaults, unexplained absences, inappropriate restraint) must be reported within 24 hours. Priority 2 incidents must be reported within 30 days.

The incident categories overlap but are not identical. An incident that is reportable under SIRS may not be a reportable incident under the NDIS scheme, and vice versa. The determining factor is which funded service the client was receiving at the time of the incident.

Reporting the same incident to the wrong regulator does not satisfy your obligations. An NDIS incident report submitted to the ACQSC is not a SIRS report.

Your incident management process needs to identify, at the point of the incident, which scheme applies and which portal the report goes to. This is driven by the shift context: was the worker delivering NDIS-funded supports or aged care-funded services?

Billing and record-keeping

The two schemes use different billing systems and different claiming structures.

NDIS: Claims are made through the NDIS myplace provider portal (or via a payment request file). Price limits are set by the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits. Each claim references a support item number from the NDIS Support Catalogue.

Support at Home: Claims are made to Services Australia. The claiming structure is by service group (independence supports, everyday living, clinical care, etc.) within a quarterly budget. There are no price limits in the NDIS sense -- each client's quarterly budget is their constraint.

Using NDIS price limits as a reference for estimating aged care service costs is not valid. The two pricing frameworks are independent. An NDIS support item rate for assistance with daily life is not comparable to a Support at Home independence supports service rate.

Your financial modelling, service agreements, and cost estimates need to be maintained separately for each scheme.

What a roster needs to carry

A roster entry for a dual-sector provider needs to carry a sector tag at the shift level. That tag drives:

Without a sector tag per shift, your system cannot enforce the right compliance checks, cannot route incidents to the right reporting scheme, and cannot produce correct billing outputs. You end up doing all of this manually, in the gaps between your rostering system and your billing system, which is where dual-sector compliance errors accumulate.

Common mistakes

Applying NDIS Worker Screening to aged care workers. The NDIS clearance does not satisfy the aged care National Police Check requirement. Workers delivering aged care services need a current National Police Check regardless of whether they also hold an NDIS clearance.

Classifying residential workers under SCHADS. Workers in residential aged care facilities are covered by the Aged Care Award MA000018. Classifying them under SCHADS and paying SCHADS rates may result in underpayment if the Aged Care Award operative rate (including work value case adjustments) is higher for their classification level.

Reporting SIRS incidents to the NDIS Commission, or NDIS incidents to the ACQSC. Each scheme has its own portal and its own reportable incident categories. A report submitted to the wrong regulator does not meet the reporting obligation for the other scheme.

Using NDIS price limits to estimate aged care costs. The two pricing frameworks are independent. Estimating Support at Home service costs based on NDIS price limits will produce wrong numbers, sometimes significantly so.

Treating a single worker classification as covering all shift types. Workers who move between residential and community settings may be covered by different awards for different shifts. Applying one classification to all their shifts produces incorrect pay for the shifts that fall under the other award.

What good looks like

A dual-sector provider with a well-structured system has one workforce database, but with sector-aware shift records. Each shift carries the sector tag, which the system uses to enforce the right checks, route incidents correctly, and produce correct billing outputs.

Workers hold all required checks for all shift types they deliver -- and the system tracks expiry for each check type independently. A worker whose NDIS clearance is current but whose National Police Check has lapsed is flagged as ineligible for aged care shifts, not pulled from the roster entirely.

Incident records capture which service was being delivered at the time, which determines where the report goes. The coordinator does not need to remember which regulator to call -- the system knows from the shift record.

Payroll handles multiple award classifications per worker where the worker delivers shifts across settings. The correct rate for each shift type is applied automatically, not by manual lookup.

This is not a theoretical ideal. It is the baseline required to operate safely across both sectors without creating ongoing compliance exposure.