The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission is in the middle of one of the most significant overhauls to its regulatory framework since the scheme’s inception. If you’re a registered NDIS provider or working toward registration, understanding what’s changing with the NDIS Practice Standards isn’t optional; it’s foundational to your compliance, your audit readiness, and your ability to deliver quality support.
This article breaks down what’s happening, what’s already in effect, and what’s coming. No jargon. No guesswork.
What Are the NDIS Practice Standards?
The NDIS Practice Standards set the quality and safety benchmarks that registered NDIS providers must meet. Published by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, they define the outcomes providers are expected to achieve when delivering supports to NDIS participants, and they inform how auditors assess compliance during verification and certification audits.
The NDIS Practice Standards sit alongside the National Disability Insurance Scheme (Quality Indicators) Guidelines 2018, which provide the detailed quality indicators auditors use to measure whether those outcomes are being met. Together, these two documents form the backbone of NDIS quality and safeguarding standards in Australia.
The current framework is built around three types of modules:
The Core Module — applies to all registered providers delivering higher-risk supports and services.
Supplementary Modules — apply depending on the types of supports being delivered. These include modules for high intensity daily personal activities, specialist behaviour support, early childhood supports, and more.
The Verification Module — applies to providers delivering lower-risk, lower-complexity supports and services.
The NDIS Practice Standards Review: What’s Being Reformed?
The NDIS Commission has engaged KPMG to lead a major, nationally consulted review of the NDIS Practice Standards. The review aims to determine what changes are needed to ensure provider and worker obligations are appropriate, focused on the right outcomes, and supported by clear guidance. The Commission has also flagged that it is considering developing an NDIS Quality Framework to complement the updated standards.
Consultation surveys for this review have now closed, and the reform is progressing. Here’s what’s proposed based on information available from the NDIS Commission’s reform hub and sector consultations:
Four new Core Practice Domains to replace the current Core Module. The proposed domains are: Individual Rights, Provider Leadership, Safe Support Practice, and Effective and Impactful Support.
New Supplementary Quality Standards to replace the current supplementary modules, with a more outcomes-focused and participant-centred framing.
Updates to the Verification Module, along with a revised overall structure including reflective questions to support providers in self-assessing their practice.
External audits reduced to a three-year cycle and changes to assessment methodology as part of a new quality framework.
New guidance materials to support implementation of the revised standards.
These changes are driven by the recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission (DRC), the NDIS Review, and the NDIS Commission’s own consultations and Own Motion Inquiries.
High Intensity Supports: Skills Descriptors Still Apply
While the broader review is underway, the NDIS Practice Standards High Intensity Support Skills Descriptors remain in force and continue to be actively applied at audit. These descriptors guide providers, workers, auditors, and participants on the skills and knowledge required when delivering high-intensity daily personal activities (HIDPA).
The supports covered by the high intensity support skills descriptors include complex bowel care, enteral feeding support, severe dysphagia management, tracheostomy care, urinary catheter support, and ventilator management. For each of these, the descriptors outline what competent workers must know and be able to do — and they specify that training must be delivered by an appropriately qualified health practitioner, documented, and kept current.
For providers registered under Supplementary Module 1 — High Intensity Daily Personal Activities, compliance with the skills descriptors is assessed at certification audits, mid-term audits, or compliance audits. The NDIS Commission recommends annual competency assessments and refresher training, as well as reassessment when a participant’s needs change or a worker has not delivered that support for three or more months.
Keeping training registers current and audit-ready is not optional. It’s one of the most scrutinised areas of provider compliance.
Mandatory Registration Expanding from 1 July 2026
In December 2025, NDIS Minister Jenny McAllister confirmed that supported independent living (SIL) providers and platform providers will be required to register with the NDIS Commission from 1 July 2026. This is a significant shift, bringing thousands of currently unregistered providers under the full regulatory framework for the first time.
New SIL Practice Standards are also being developed and tested as part of this process. The NDIS Commission has partnered with Inclusion Australia to co-design these standards, with participant voices prioritised throughout. Consultation, policy development, and market readiness activities commenced in February 2026, and the Commission has indicated that new Practice Standards for SIL providers are planned from 1 July 2026. Providers should monitor the NDIS Commission’s reform hub for confirmation of final timelines.
For providers already registered, this is a signal that the regulatory environment is tightening. For those considering registration, the window to prepare is narrowing.
The Integrity and Safeguarding Bill 2025
On 26 November 2025, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025 was introduced into Parliament. The Bill proposes 10 amendments to the NDIS Act, strengthening the regulatory capabilities of the NDIS Commission. Key measures include a stronger penalty framework with increased civil penalties and new criminal offences (including for operating without required registration and for failing to comply with banning orders), new anti-promotion orders to restrict predatory marketing that exploits participants, and the expansion of banning order powers to include auditors and consultants, not just providers and their employees. The Bill is still to pass both Houses of Parliament before it becomes law, and is scheduled for further consideration when Parliament sits in 2026.
For providers, the message is clear: the Commission is building a more formidable enforcement toolkit. Providers who cut corners on governance, worker screening, or documentation will face increasingly serious consequences.
What Do These Changes Mean for Your Policies?
Regulatory reform at this scale doesn’t change what good practice looks like; it raises the bar for how providers demonstrate it. Strong governance, documented incident management, clear risk registers, robust worker training records, and policies that reflect actual operational practice are all more important than ever.
One of the most common audit vulnerabilities is the gap between what policies say and what actually happens in the organisation. As the NDIS Commission sharpens its focus on participant outcomes and provider accountability, that gap becomes harder to hide and more costly to address.
The proposed shift to four Core Practice Domains also signals a more holistic view of quality, one that places provider leadership and individual rights alongside safe support practice. Organisations that operate well across all four of these domains don’t just pass audits; they build the operational foundations that hold up under scrutiny at any time, not just audit time.
What to Do Right Now
Review your current policies against the existing NDIS Practice Standards. The current framework is still in force. Don’t wait for the new standards to land before addressing gaps.
Check your high intensity support training registers. Ensure all workers delivering HIDPA supports have current, documented, practitioner-delivered training. This is one of the first things auditors look for.
If you provide SIL supports, prepare for mandatory registration. The July 2026 deadline is firm. Start mapping your documentation, policies, and governance structures now.
Monitor the NDIS Commission’s Reform Hub. The Commission publishes its Regulatory Reform Roadmap and updates on the Practice Standards Review at ndiscommission.gov.au. This is the authoritative source — check it regularly.
Align your internal quality systems with the direction of travel. The four proposed Core Practice Domains give a strong indication of where NDIS quality standards are heading. Build your systems around individual rights, leadership accountability, safe practices, and measurable outcomes — regardless of when the new standards formally take effect.
The Bottom Line
The NDIS disability service standards are changing, not because the fundamentals of quality care are different, but because the Commission is building a sharper, more structured way to assess them. The providers who will navigate this transition well are those who already operate with strong policies, clear accountability, and a genuine commitment to participant well-being.
NDIS quality and safeguarding standards have always been about more than paperwork. The 2026 reform program makes that clearer than ever. For up-to-date information direct from the regulator, visit the NDIS Commission’s Practice Standards page at ndiscommission.gov.au/rules-and-standards/ndis-practice-standards and the Reform Hub at ndiscommission.gov.au/about-us/ndis-commission-reform-hub.
