NDIS Practice Standards
Core module: support provision environment
core-26a.2 Mealtime management: assessment by qualified practitioners
Clause and reference core-26a.2, our reference for this requirement in the NDIS Practice Standards and Quality Indicators
The requirement
Each participant needing mealtime management has their needs assessed by appropriately qualified health practitioners, who assess nutrition and swallowing comprehensively, assess seating and positioning for eating and drinking, provide mealtime management plans covering swallowing, eating and drinking, and review assessments and plans annually, as the practitioner advises, or sooner if needs change or difficulty is observed.
Our wording of the requirement: our statement of what the clause asks, not the instrument verbatim. Source: NDIS Practice Standards on the compliance desk.
The evidence to bring
- Speech pathology and dietitian assessments in participant files
- Occupational therapy seating and positioning assessments
- Mealtime management plans signed by the practitioner with review dates
- Referral records when new difficulty was observed
What assessors commonly find
- Plans older than a year with no practitioner review
- Plans written by support staff rather than a qualified practitioner
What evidence do I need?
For core-26a.2 Mealtime management: assessment by qualified practitioners, the evidence to bring is: Speech pathology and dietitian assessments in participant files; Occupational therapy seating and positioning assessments. It sits under Core module: support provision environment and our reference for it is core-26a.2. Keep every record dated, signed and current, and name who owns it.
Answer the reviewer first
Show me speech pathology and dietitian assessments in participant files, and tell me who owns it and when it was last reviewed.
That is the question a quality assessor opens with for this requirement. Have the record on the desk and the date it was last reviewed to hand.
Read your own evidence against this clause
Paste your policy or evidence pack and the reading marks, line by line, whether a phrase from this requirement appears and quotes your own words when it does. It is a reading of your text, not a compliance result; a quality assessor decides whether a requirement is met. Read your pack, free See the paid reading