Independent Assessments

                                 Submission 73

To the NDIS Joint Standing Committee Inquiry into Independent Assessment

To whomever it may concern

It has just come to my attention that the government is considering introducing a scheme whereby “independent assessors” will assess a new NDIS applicant’s eligibility for the NDIS, instead of the current process, which requires supporting evidence to be provided by the applicant’s primary relevant professional supports, such as their psychologist, social support worker etc..

I am currently an NDIS participant, having been on the scheme for nearly a year. If during the application process, which was already alien and complicated, I had had to suffer the ordeal of being “psychologically assessed” by a complete stranger, I would probably have been terrified during the run-up to, and during, the assessment, giving a misleading if not false “snapshot” of what I was really like.

I may well have even given up on the whole process, prior to said “assessment”, to my detriment. Such is the nature of my mental health condition, the very reason I am on the NDIS in the first place.

Maybe that is the whole purpose of independent assessments – to make people cry off applying for the NDIS, to save money. That is what it looks like to me.

I would also like to say that even the term “Independent Assessment” seems to me to be somewhat disingenuous, subtly but powerfully conveying the idea as it does that the current assessors are not independent. This is a slur on every professional who provides assessments as part of the current process. In fact it is a slur on the whole relevant industry.

Yours faithfully

Name withheld