NDIA Accountability Project

Report for the NDIS Joint Standing Committee

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Anowah

Community Living Inc

Integration and independence for people with disabilities

REPORT FOR THE NDIS JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE

REPORT FOR THE NDCS JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE

CONTENTS

  • Introduction
  • Participant Registration
  • Planning Meetings
  • Plan Preparation
  • Procedure Guidance and Training
  • NDIA Support
  • Plan Review Requests
  • Portal - Provider and Participant
  • Payment requests
  • Pricing

Contact Details:

Carole Turnbull, CEO Anowah Community Living Inc

Submission

NDIS the of performance and implementation the around issues General

Community Living Inc

Integration and independence for people with disabilities

Suggested improvements:

  • Having the option to supply information in written format with provision for comments and supplying supporting documentation would definitely have made this organisation and its participants/ family support members more comfortable than the over the phone procedure.

Planning Meetings Anowah clients commenced their planning meetings with the Local Area Coordinators in June 2016. It is my understanding that Anowah’s clients were one of the first NDIS participants to have their planning meetings. This can be seen as a positive in that the process should be fairly straight forward and quick. At the information sessions for service providers run by the NDIA on the transition process clients currently in group homes were considered to be the easiest to transition (due to the availability of information) and thus would be the first to undergo the transition process. NDIA also informed service providers that “all service providers of shared living support (group homes) would be allocated the LAC and a NDIA support person to support the transition process for the clients”.

Anowah clients and their families in preparation for the planning meeting all worked through the NDIS Planning Workbook. This was a very useful tool and as such our NDIS participants and their support families were well prepared for the planning meeting.

Although Anowah clients were well prepared for the planning meetings it was evident that the same amount of preparation had not been achieved by the NDIA and the LAC assigned to us.

The first couple of planning meetings for our clients went well. The LAC that conducted these meetings appeared to be well informed and have an understanding on the participant’s requirements and choices. However some of our participants had an LAC that had only been employed for less than a week and these LAC’s were also training other LACs that had been employed for only a couple of days.

During the period of the planning meetings the NDIA had computer technical problems. On several occasions the planning meeting information was not able to be input directly into the computer system but written down for input at a later time. This often involved a follow up phone call in order to complete the plan.

The LAC’s that did attend the meetings were always very professional and appeared to be focused on the interest of the participant.

Suggested improvement:

  • It was evident that during the planning process for our participants that the LAC and the NDIA did not have the capacity or the capability to implement such a transition at 1 July 2016. | appreciate that the NDIA was itself struggling to have sufficient staff and computer technology able to cater for the massive task of transitioning the volume of participants. | also appreciate that this may have been related to available funding; knowing that the block

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Submission

NDIS the of performance and implementation the around issues General

Community Living Inc

Integration and independence for people with disabilities

permitted under the NDIS.

What was included in their plan was a consumable item but this was for incontinence aids. Somewhere from the planning meeting to the plan approval this information was changed. This participant has no requirement for incontinence aids.

  • The participants should have the opportunity for a review or discussion of the plan prior to the plan being approved. This additional step would greatly reduce the requirement for plan reviews. This would then alleviate the strain on the valuable resources of the NDIA.
  • The NDIS supports budgets provide more detail in the budget allocation for the individual items in the core support area. The participant portal does in some cases indicate in more detail the allocated supports in the core area. This information should be available in the written plan as well for those unable to access the portal.

Procedure Guidance and Training | attended many information sessions prior to the introduction of the NDIS in year 1 areas. | may have missed some information but in none of the sessions | attended was there any information on the actual procedures required by the NDIA. An example of this is the requirement to provide quotations for some items of support. | could find no guidance at all in the portal manual or the information provided on the website on how this was actually to be done. To this date I’m not really sure of the correct procedure for submission of quotes. Is it the correct procedure to submit quotes to the general email enquiries@ndis.gov.au or via the provider portal or get the participant to upload the documents via their individual portal? Plan review requests may require quotes submitted as supporting documentation. The NDIA during the review process informed me that it is a general requirement that 2 quotes be submitted with plan review requests. | have not been able to locate any information on the website in relation to supporting documentation required for plan reviews etc. If this information was available the process of plan reviews could be streamlined by submitting all required documentation with the request for plan review. This would save a great deal of double handling and waiting for additional information. Suggested improvements:

  • Training and guidance be available as to the requirements of the NDIA especially in the areas of quotations submissions and written plan review requests. This could be by fact sheets on the website.

NDIA Support In the information sessions pre the introduction of the NDIS service providers providing shared living options were informed that they would be allocated a support person form the NDIA to assist participants through the transition process. | stated previously that our clients commenced the transition process in June 2016. At this time our organisation had no support from the NDIA. Our NDIS participants having completed the planning phase were receiving their NDIS support plans. Many of these required review or were not able to be implemented due to NDIA not fulfilling all the

Submission

NDIS the of performance and implementation the around issues General

Community Living Inc

Integration and independence for people with disabilities

  • Reduce the amount of time on the phone before support is available.
  • Ensure that follow up/call back requests are actioned in a timely manner

Plan Review Requests

The written plan review process is not working well. As previously stated, this process could be easier if more information was available as to supporting documentation required to be lodged with the review request. Our organisation being a service provider is only able to assist the NDIS participant and their family in the plan review request process. I am only able to comment on the written plan review request process as this is the option that our NDIS participants and their families have chosen for the lodgement of review requests. Family support for our participants does not feel confident in contacting the NDIA directly.

Current experience with plan review requests is that:

  • Written requests submitted by email are not logged as being received until 2–3 weeks after being submitted e.g. requests lodged on 20 February 2017, evidenced by an email response, being recorded on the NDIA system as received on the 9 March 2017.

  • Requests not being allocated to a planner for a period of up to 2 months after the system record date. This could be almost three months from actual lodgement of the request.

  • Action only seems to occur on the progress of non urgent requests after follow up phone calls or emails.

Support plan review requests are submitted due to the current plan not being suitable. To be expected to wait 3 months and longer to have the plan reviewed is an area of concern. I appreciate that the NDIA has been required to review a great number of the first support plans. This is common knowledge and is probably a result of the many of the factors mentioned previously such as incorrect or incomplete information being supplied to the plan writers initially, lack of a review process prior to the plan being approved, lack of experience of LACs and NDIA staff.

Suggested improvements:

  • Reduce the requirement for a plan review by more consultation with the participants and their support people. Our experience is that the NDIS places all the information submitting responsibility on the participant or their family support. Service providers especially those providing shared living accommodation options (i.e., the participants home) have a great deal of information that is relevant to the preparation of a participant’s support plan. My experience is that at the planning meeting there was no opportunity to provide supporting documentation to evidence requirements of the NDIS plan.

Provider and Participant Portal

Provider Portal: The provider portal is very easy to navigate and understand. Data input is straightforward. The only comment that I have in regard to the provider portal is that it is often very slow. I expect this is due to the demand and volume of users at these times. I find that if I need to input data e.g. payment requests it is better to do so out of business hours.

Submission

NDIS the of performance and implementation the around issues General