Tracheostomy Support

Yes, we can take someone with a tracheostomy

Tracheostomy management is one of the seven high-intensity supports PowerCare is registered and audited to deliver. It is not an exception we make. It is a support we are built for.

If you have been told by other providers that a trach is “too complex”, you have not been told the whole story. Tracheostomy management sits inside NDIS registration group 104 (Assist Personal Activities — High) under Practice Standards Module 1. Providers who hold Module 1 can deliver it. Providers who don’t, can’t. PowerCare holds it.

Who delivers the care

High-intensity supports at PowerCare are delivered either by registered nurses, or by support workers who hold high-intensity training and work under registered-nurse supervision — which one depends on the participant’s clinical needs and circumstances.

A registered nurse is involved either way. The nurse does not appear only in a policy document: they are the person who sets up the support, trains the workers against the participant’s own plan, and stays responsible for how the support is delivered.

You will not be teaching our workers how to care for your family member. We will ask you what you know, because you know more about this person than any document does — but the training is our job, not yours.

What a shift actually looks like

A tracheostomy shift is mostly ordinary. Someone gets up, gets dressed, eats, goes out, watches something, goes to bed. The trach is part of the day, not the whole day.

Within that day, the worker delivers the tracheostomy support set out in the participant’s care plan — suctioning, stoma care, tube and inner cannula care, humidification, and checking equipment — following the protocols written by the participant’s treating clinicians, at the times and in the way those clinicians specify.

Every worker on a tracheostomy shift knows what a blocked or displaced tube looks like, knows the participant’s specific emergency plan, and knows exactly what to do and who to call. That plan is written down, it is rehearsed, and it goes on shift with them.

How to start

Call us. On that first call we will ask what the tracheostomy needs actually are, who the treating clinicians are, and what has gone wrong with previous supports.

Then a registered nurse reviews the clinical information and we tell you honestly whether we can deliver it, and when. High-intensity supports need workers trained against your specific plan before a first shift, so a start date is not instant — but you will get a real date, on the first call, and we will keep it.

If we cannot do it, we will say so on that call. Not after a week of silence.

Common questions

Do you actually do suctioning, or do you expect family to do it?

We do it. Suctioning is part of the tracheostomy support we deliver, performed by nurses or by high-intensity trained workers under nurse supervision, following the participant’s clinical protocol. Families should not have to be the on-call clinician in their own home.

Can you support both cuffed and uncuffed tubes, and ventilated participants?

Tracheostomy management is delivered against the participant’s specific clinical plan, so the honest answer is that it depends on what that plan requires. Tell us the details on the first call and a registered nurse will assess it. Where a need falls outside what we are registered to deliver, we say so directly rather than accepting the referral and working it out later.

Is a nurse actually involved, or is that just on paper?

A registered nurse is involved in every high-intensity support we deliver. Depending on clinical need, the nurse delivers the support directly, or supervises the trained support workers who do. There is no version of this where a worker is sent out alone with no clinical oversight.

What happens if something goes wrong at 2am?

Every tracheostomy participant has an emergency plan written into their support plan — what the worker does, in what order, and who they call. The worker rehearses it before their first shift. We do not improvise this.

Which NDIS funding pays for it?

Tracheostomy support is a high-intensity daily personal activity, funded from the Core supports budget of an NDIS plan (registration group 104). If you are not sure whether your plan has the right funding in it, bring the plan to the call and we will read it with you.