Free tool
NDIS progress note template
Six sections, with a prompt for each one and the reason it matters to whoever reads the note later. This is the structure ShiftNote itself uses — not a separate template written for a search engine.
The template
Copy the headings into whatever you write in. Answer the prompt under each; delete the prompt.
Section 1
Purpose of shift:
What was this shift for? Scheduled support, hours booked, where.
Why: Sets what the note is evidence of, and makes the support recognisable without reading the whole note.
Section 2
Support provided:
What did you actually do, and for how long? State start and finish, or total hours.
Why: The duration is the single most common omission and the first thing anyone checking a claim looks at.
Section 3
Participant response & observations:
What did the participant do and say? Use their words where they said something that matters.
Why: Observations are evidence; conclusions about how someone felt are not. A quote evidences choice and control better than a summary of it.
Section 4
Progress toward NDIS goals:
What was this working toward? Name the goal if you know it, and say what changed.
Why: Connects the support to what it is funded for. If you do not know the goal, write that rather than inventing one.
Section 5
Health, wellbeing & medication:
Medication, health, wellbeing. Write "no medication administered this shift" if none.
Why: A blank is ambiguous; an explicit statement is a record. Never write a dose you did not administer or are unsure of.
Section 6
Incidents, restrictive practices & follow-up:
Anything that went wrong, any restrictive practice, and what happens next. Write "none" explicitly.
Why: Recording a concern is not an accusation. Leaving it out is the thing that causes problems later.
There is deliberately no filled-in example note on this page. A complete sample about an invented participant is the thing people copy and adapt, and a care record adapted from fiction is how detail that never happened ends up in a real one. The examples guide shows real-shape notes as rewrites, with the reasoning attached.
Three rules that matter more than the template
A note using none of these headings but following these rules is a better record than one that does the opposite.
Write what you saw and heard, not what you concluded
“Said he was tired” is evidence. “Was depressed” is a clinical claim you are not making and cannot support.
Write the times
Start and finish, or total hours, in the note itself. Everything downstream depends on it and almost nothing else can substitute for it.
Never write a detail you are not sure of
A dose, a time, a name you half-remember. Write that you are not sure and who can confirm it. An open question in a care record is safe; a confident invention is not.
Or say what happened and let the structure sort itself out
ShiftNote turns what you say into these six sections, in Australian English, from whichever language you think in. Anything unclear is listed for you to confirm rather than filled in. Free permanently for support workers.