What this report is for
The reader is an NDIA delegate deciding whether the person meets the disability requirements in section 24 of the NDIS Act. They are not assessing the diagnosis, and they are not a clinician. They are checking whether the evidence in front of them establishes each element of the criteria, and a report that does not speak to an element leaves it unestablished, however good the clinical picture. That is the whole difference between this document and a letter to a GP: the structure is the criteria, and the clinical narrative is evidence for them.
Since the 2024 amendments to the Act, access decisions also record which impairment categories were accepted, so the report should be unambiguous that the functional impact described flows from a psychosocial impairment. Check the current operational guidelines, linked under Sources; they change.
The criteria the report has to speak to
Under the disability requirements, the person must have an impairment that:
- Is attributable to a psychiatric condition. The diagnosis establishes this. Name it, and the history that supports it.
- Is permanent, or likely to be permanent. For psychosocial disability the condition may be episodic or fluctuating; what has to be permanent is the impairment. This is where most reports fail.
- Results in substantially reduced functional capacity in one or more of six domains: communication, social interaction, learning, mobility, self-care and self-management. Each relevant domain needs concrete description.
- Affects the person's capacity for social and economic participation. Work, study, relationships, community.
- Means the person is likely to need NDIS supports for their lifetime. Distinct from treatment, which the health system provides.
A separate early-intervention pathway exists under section 25 and is less often the basis for psychosocial access; the guidelines describe when it applies.
What it must contain
- Your standing. That you are the treating psychiatrist, how long you have treated the person, and when you last saw them. Evidence from the treating professional with the most knowledge of the disability carries the most weight.
- Diagnosis and history. The condition, when it began, its course over years, hospitalisations and crises. This establishes that the impairment is attributable to a psychiatric condition.
- Treatment history, and permanence. Every treatment tried, for how long, and with what result: medications and doses, psychological therapies, hospital and community programmes. Then the judgement in plain words: available treatment has been fully explored; remaining treatment is aimed at management rather than recovery; the impairment is likely to be permanent. Do not write "may improve with treatment" unless you mean the person does not meet the criteria.
- The impairment, stated separately from the diagnosis. What the person cannot do, or cannot do without support, as a result of the condition. This sentence is the hinge of the report.
- Functional impact, domain by domain. For each relevant domain: what the person can and cannot do, how often, with what support, with a concrete example. Describe a typical day and a bad day, not a good one. State whether the described capacity is with or without informal support, and who provides it.
- The episodic pattern. Frequency, duration and depth of episodes over the last several years, what function looks like between them, and what happens to function during them. This is how permanence is shown for a fluctuating condition.
- Current supports. Who does what for the person now: family, community mental health, support workers, services, and what falls apart when they are absent.
- Social and economic participation. Work and study history and current status, relationships, community involvement, and how the impairment limits each.
- A summary statement against the criteria. One paragraph, in order: attributable, permanent, substantially reduced capacity in the named domains, participation affected, lifetime support likely.
Where reports fall short
- They describe the diagnosis and the symptoms, and never the function. A delegate cannot infer "substantially reduced capacity" from "severe depression".
- They hedge the prognosis. "Has responded partially" and "may benefit from further therapy" are read as evidence that the impairment is not permanent.
- They describe a good day, or describe function with informal support in place without saying so.
- They ignore the six domains, or address one and leave the others silent, which reads as no impairment there.
- They are written as a letter to a GP: history first, plan last, criteria nowhere.
- They omit the treatment history, so the delegate cannot see that treatment has been explored.
- They are short, or from a clinician who has seen the person once.
A skeleton that works
Plan reviews and changes of circumstances
Once the person is a participant, the reports change job. A plan review report is not the access report again; it describes what the funded supports achieved, what they did not, what changed in function and circumstances, and what is now needed. A change-of-circumstances report explains a specific change (a deterioration, a move, a loss of informal support) and its effect on need. The NDIS - Plan Review Supporting Report and NDIS - Change of Circumstances presets are built for each.
How PsychDispatch drafts this
The NDIS - Access Request / Supporting Evidence preset drafts the report in the structure above, and it is the document where Patient Intelligence does the most work: the treatment history with dates, doses and outcomes, the hospitalisations, the episodic pattern across years of consultations and the functional observations recorded visit by visit are already in the record, so the permanence section and the domain-by-domain impact are drawn from what was documented over time rather than reconstructed from memory at the desk. Every claim is verified against the source, and the report goes out on your letterhead.