Manual Handling for Disability Support Workers in Aged Care

Where disability support and aged care overlap

The two systems are separate, but they meet. The NDIS is for people who become participants before they turn 65, and a participant who joined before then can stay in the scheme after that birthday. Government-funded aged care is generally for people aged 65 and over, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from 50, people aged 50 and over who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, and people already in aged care. The National Disability Insurance Agency says it is committed to no participant under 65 living in residential aged care unless there are exceptional circumstances or it is their will and preference. Some younger people do live in aged care homes, and participants among them can still use their NDIS plan while they are there.

That creates several situations in which a disability support worker helps people move in, or next to, an aged care setting:

• Supporting a younger resident of an aged care home with NDIS-funded supports, such as community access, while the aged care provider delivers their personal and clinical care
• Supporting a participant who is ageing, whose strength, balance and skin are changing faster than their plan
• A participant who, after turning 65, moves permanently into residential aged care or starts permanent home care, at which point they leave the NDIS and aged care workers take over
• Working for both an NDIS provider and an aged care provider, with different equipment, plans and procedures at each

Working in someone else's workplace

When you support a younger resident inside an aged care home, the building, the beds, the hoists and the resident's clinical care belong to the aged care provider. Your own employer still owes you its work health and safety duties, and where more than one organisation has duties for the same work, each must consult, cooperate and coordinate with the others. In practice, before you move the person, you need to know which plan applies to the transfer, whose equipment you are using, whether you have been trained on it, and who you tell if something goes wrong.

Do not assume the aged care home's transfer method matches the one in the participant's NDIS manual handling plan, or that you are authorised to use the home's hoist. Ask the registered nurse or person in charge on that shift, agree the arrangement with your own supervisor, and make sure it is written down. An incident in the home may need reporting through both organisations' systems.

Ageing participants: when the plan stops fitting

A support routine that worked for years can become unsafe gradually as a person ages. Watch for a participant who needs more help to stand, gets tired sooner, has more spasm or pain, has thinner or more fragile skin, falls or nearly falls, or has a new diagnosis that affects how they move. These are reasons to ask for an occupational therapist or physiotherapist to review the manual handling plan and the equipment, not reasons to take more of the person's weight yourself.

The cumulative risk to you matters as well. Disability support often means the same physical tasks with the same person over years, so small problems with bed height, space or technique compound over time. Treat repetition and sustained posture as risk factors in their own right, and report early discomfort rather than working through it.

Moving between NDIS and aged care employers

The core expectation of workers is almost identical in both sectors. The NDIS Code of Conduct requires supports to be provided in a safe and competent manner with care and skill, and the Aged Care Code of Conduct uses nearly the same words for funded aged care services. Both require you to raise concerns about quality and safety promptly. What differs is the paperwork and the systems: NDIS manual handling plans and NDIS Commission reporting on one side; aged care care plans, the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards, in force since 1 November 2025, and the Serious Incident Response Scheme on the other.

The NDIS Worker Orientation Module is mandatory for staff of registered NDIS providers, but it covers the Code of Conduct and participant rights, not manual handling. Neither sector names a particular manual handling course. In each job, your employer is responsible for training you on its own equipment and procedures before you use them.

Which course to take

If you work mainly in aged care homes, or with ageing participants alongside aged care staff, this aged care course covers the settings you will be in: Module 6, People Handling in Aged Care, and Module 7, Equipment and Mechanical Aids, deal with residential beds, hoists and transfers, and Module 8, Reporting, Incidents and Ongoing Safety, covers aged care reporting. If most of your work is supported independent living, in-home support or community access, choose the Disability Support course instead. Both are non-accredited workplace training with a 20-question assessment and an A$49 Certificate of Completion paid only after you pass, and neither replaces practical training from your employer.

Covered in the course

• Module 6: People Handling in Aged Care
• Module 7: Equipment and Mechanical Aids
• Module 8: Reporting, Incidents and Ongoing Safety

Common questions

Related pages

• Carers
• Aged care workers
• Personal care assistants
• Home care workers
• Hoists and equipment
• New to aged care
• All aged care guides, including each state