Independent Assessments

                                 Submission 140

Independent Assessments are not going to give the information needed to set funding for a NDIS plan.

Participants can choose to use their funding to secure skilled clinicians that they trust and who have a deep understanding of their disability to get this information to the NDIA. This information can be relied on by the NDIA, clinicians are not going to go against their training or risk their professional registration by delivering anything not factual and evidence based.

The difference is they can take their time and work with the client at the client’s pace to gather the information needed on how the client can best be supported.

In my experience (my son) there is no way this information can be gathered in a short time or by someone new to him. It could not be gathered by any Allied Health discipline. It can (and has been) gathered over multiple short visits by an OT who gained his trust, and therefore was able to observe him in various settings and also to talk with myself and my husband, all the SW who know my son well, and his doctors.

Another example is a colleague, a 27-year-old who (since NDIS) has moved to her own unit 1 year ago. She decided to complete an IA in the trial to see what would happen. She was contacted by a physiotherapist with no knowledge of her disability. The physiotherapist requested that the meeting be held at my colleague’s parents’ home, took less than 2 hours and did not cover many aspects of my friend’s disability or the specific supports she needs to live independently of her parents. As she stayed in her wheelchair the whole time it wasn’t clear that the physio realised she has a prosthesis, or that she cannot place her hands on her head (eg cannot wash her hair without assistance). She was asked to make a cup of tea. Contrary to the information received prior to the IA my friend has never seen the outcome of the IA.