In-home nursing
Wound dressings, injections and medication management done at your own kitchen table, by a nurse, without the trip to the clinic.
Clinical care, delivered at home
A leg ulcer dressed three times a week means three trips to a clinic, or one nurse who comes to you. For anyone who no longer drives, the difference between those two options decides whether the wound gets treated properly or not.
Our nurses are registered and enrolled nurses working to the same standards they would in a hospital ward, in a house instead of a ward. They carry their own supplies, document every visit, and talk to your GP when something changes.
Visits run as long as the task needs. A straightforward dressing change might be twenty minutes. A first visit after a hospital discharge, where the medication list has to be reconciled against the summary and a plan written, takes considerably longer. Nobody leaves halfway through a wound because the clock said so.
What our nurses do
- Wound care and dressings, including surgical wounds, leg ulcers, skin tears and pressure areas.
- Medication management, injections and webster pack setup, so the right tablets are taken on the right day.
- Catheter care, stoma care and continence assessment.
- Diabetes support: blood glucose monitoring, insulin, and foot checks that catch problems early.
- Monitoring chronic conditions such as heart failure and COPD, including blood pressure and weight.
- Palliative support at home, working alongside your palliative care team.
Coming home from hospital
The week after a discharge is where most readmissions start. There's a folder of instructions, a changed medication list, a wound that needs watching and, often, nobody to check that any of it is happening.
A nurse in the first fortnight sorts out the medications against the discharge summary, dresses the wound on schedule, watches for infection and knows what a temperature spike means. If something's heading the wrong way, they ring your GP that day. That's usually the whole reason a family calls us.
Working with the rest of your care
Nursing rarely runs on its own. If a support worker is already coming for the shower, they're the one who'll notice a dressing has lifted or that Tuesday's tablets are still in the pack. That gets raised with the nurse the same day instead of waiting for the next scheduled visit.
Where several services are in play, one care manager keeps the whole arrangement in order, so a daughter isn't acting as the switchboard between a nurse, a physiotherapist and a GP receptionist.
Nursing is fully funded
Nursing sits in the Clinical supports category of Support at Home, the program that replaced Home Care Packages on 1 November 2025. Clinical supports are funded in full by the government. There's no participant contribution for nursing at all, whatever your income and whether or not you receive the Age Pension.
That surprises people, and it's worth knowing before you decline a visit you assume you can't afford. The services that carry a contribution are the Independence ones, like personal care and transport, and the Everyday living ones, like cleaning and meals.
Getting a nurse out
Call 1800 434 002 or fill in the form below. Have the discharge summary or GP referral nearby if you have one, and if you don't, tell us what's going on and we'll work out whether nursing is the right answer or whether something else would serve you better. There's no charge for that conversation.
Other services
- In-home allied health — physiotherapy, occupational therapy and podiatry at home.
- Personal care — help with showering, dressing and getting through the morning.
- Care management — one person coordinating the whole plan on your behalf.
- All services
Common questions
What can a nurse do at home that a support worker cannot?
Anything clinical. A support worker can prompt you to take a tablet; a nurse can administer an injection, dress a wound, change a catheter, manage a stoma, take blood pressure and blood glucose readings, and set up a webster pack. Nurses also make the judgement calls, such as whether a wound is healing or a symptom needs your GP today.
Do I have to pay for nursing under Support at Home?
No. Nursing sits in the Clinical supports category, which the government funds in full. There is no participant contribution for clinical supports regardless of your income or your Age Pension status. It is the one part of the program where what you pay is the same for everybody.
Will I see the same nurse each visit?
For an ongoing course of care, such as a wound being dressed several times a week, we roster the same nurse wherever we can. Continuity here is a clinical matter as much as a social one: a nurse who saw the wound on Monday is the best judge of whether it has changed by Friday.
Do you work with my GP and the hospital?
Yes. Wound care, catheter changes and medication management usually start from a GP referral or a hospital discharge plan, and we work to those instructions. Your nurse documents each visit and will contact your GP if something needs review rather than leaving it for you to chase.
How soon can nursing start?
Faster than most services, because clinical need does not wait. Post-hospital referrals and wound care are the ones we move first. Call us with the discharge summary or the referral and we will tell you on that call what we can do and when, rather than putting you on a list.
Can I get nursing before my package is approved?
Yes, privately, and people frequently do after a hospital stay when a wound needs dressing three times a week and the package is still months away. Once your package is assigned the service moves onto it, and because nursing is fully funded as a clinical support your contribution stops at that point.
Enquire about in-home nursing
Tell us where you're up to and we'll be in touch. Prefer to talk? Call 1800 434 002.