NDIS household tasks: what is covered and what is not

What household tasks funding is

Household tasks sits in the Core Supports part of a plan, under assistance with daily life. It funds a support worker to help with the practical running of your home where your disability makes those tasks difficult or unsafe to do yourself.

It is deliberately mundane. Nobody writes inspirational material about laundry. But when the washing is three loads deep and the fridge is empty, everything else in the week gets harder, and this is the support that stops that spiral.

What is usually covered

• Cleaning, vacuuming, bathrooms and general tidying
• Washing, drying, folding and putting clothes away
• Grocery shopping, either with you or from your list
• Meal planning, cooking, and batch preparing food for the week
• Changing linen, taking out bins and the jobs that never quite get done
• Keeping on top of bills, mail and household paperwork
• Basic tidying of outdoor areas where that is part of keeping the home safe

What is usually not covered

Two more that catch people out. The scheme funds supports related to your disability, so tasks for other adults in the household are generally not covered, and neither is the cost of the groceries themselves. A worker can do your shopping. You still pay for the shopping.

The test that decides most cases

When something is borderline, the question is usually some version of: would you be able to do this yourself if not for your disability, and is the help reasonable and necessary as a result?

Everyone has to clean their house. The NDIS does not fund housework because housework is tedious. It funds it where a disability means you cannot do it, or cannot do it safely, or where doing it costs you the energy you need for everything else in the day. That last point is legitimate and frequently understated by participants who feel they should be coping.

How many hours is realistic

There is no standard number. What works is describing which jobs are actually getting away from you and letting someone work out how long that honestly takes, rather than guessing at a figure before the conversation starts.

How it differs from personal care and life skills

These three get mixed up constantly, and the difference matters because they are funded separately.

The distinction between the first and the third is worth understanding. Household tasks is about the job getting done. Daily living and life skills is about you learning to do it, which means it looks slower and messier in the short term because that is the point. Plenty of people have both, for different tasks.

Getting the most out of it

Three things make the difference between this support working and not.

First, write down how you like things done. Not as a complaint, as a standard. Where the cleaning products live, which cupboard the plates go in, what never gets moved. A provider worth using records that and every worker follows it, so you are not retraining someone every fortnight.

Second, ask for the same person. Continuity is the only reason your preferences stick. If a provider cannot tell you who is coming next week, your standards will reset every visit.

Third, say something the first time it is done wrong. It should get fixed in the notes rather than in one conversation with one worker who then leaves.

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