Supported Living Payment for carers medical certificate
Medical and Nurse practitioners: When a person applies for Supported Living Payment because they are caring for someone, you may need to fill in a Supported Living Payment for carers medical certificate.
The Supported Living Payment for carers medical certificate helps us to understand the type and level of care required.
This medical certificate collects medical information about the person being cared for, not the person providing the care.
The Supported Living Payment benefit may be paid to a person who is providing full-time care and attention to someone (not their spouse or partner) at home. This payment recognises the impact of providing that level of care has on a carer's ability to work.
If the person wasn't being cared for at home they'd otherwise need:
- residential disability care
- extended care services for severely disabled children and young people
- hospital-level care (in-patient or residential hospital care)
- rest home care, or
- care equivalent to any of these kinds of care.
When completing our medical certificates, you should follow the standards set out by the Medical Council of New Zealand:
Medical certification (Medical Council of New Zealand)external
Who can complete it
The following people can complete a Supported Living Payment – caring for a person, medical certificate:
- medical practitioners, and
- nurse practitioners.
You must be registered to practice within New Zealand and have a current Annual Practicing Certificate.
You should generally be the usual Medical or Nurse practitioner of the person being cared for (not of the person providing care). If you're not, you need to have sighted relevant recent medical assessments or other up-to-date information about the person.
You also need to have seen the person being cared for face-to-face recently.
Where to find it
Download and print
You can download and print the medical certificate here:
Hardcopy
The patient or carer may also bring you a hardcopy of the Supported Living Payment medical certificate, if they’re completing a Supported Living Payment paper application form.
Completing questions 5, 10, 14 and 17
Q5 - Who is best placed to provide the information
Here you can indicate if you:
- feel the medical certificate should be completed by another medical practitioner, or
- want to request a second opinion.
If you'd like a second opinion, we'll pay the cost of the appointment with a Designated Health Practitioner.
Designated Health Practitioners
Q10 - Needs Assessment and Service Co-ordination (NASC) assessment
If the person being cared for hasn't had a needs assessment done yet, we recommend referring them to NASC or a similar service where appropriate. This helps make sure they get the right support—like trained care, equipment, home modifications, or respite care—if needed. The care given by a Supported Living Payment (SLP) Carer should be in addition to this support, not a substitute for it.
Q14 - Full-time care and attention
For the carer to be eligible, the person being cared for must require access to care and attention at all times. The carer doesn’t need to provide continuous full-time care, but they must be available 24 hours a day in case support is needed.
For this reason, the carer cannot work full-time or live far away, because this would limit their availability.
The level of care required must go beyond what is typically needed by someone of the same age. For example, the person would otherwise need:
- hospital care
- rest home care
- residential disability care
- extended care for severely disabled children and young people, or
- care of an equivalent kind to the these examples.
Simply offering companionship or occasional help with daily tasks is not sufficient to qualify.
Q17 - Review period
You are asked to anticipate the length of time that this care arrangement will be needed, and indicate a review period.
This is because the condition of someone who requires full-time care and attention can change over time. Their situation may improve, or it may deteriorate, meaning the carer can no longer care for them.
Sending medical certificates to us
You need to:
- Print a copy for your patient.
- Ask them to either:
- take it to their local Work and Income Service Centre, or
- upload it onto MyMSD.
Please keep a copy for your own records, which should be scanned into the patient's records.
Contact us
If you have any questions or if there's something you'd like to discuss, your Regional Health and Disability Team's details are available on your regional Work and Income Health Pathway.