The NDIA is supposedly based on functional impairment, yet people will be granted access to the NDIA on the basis of a sole disability and the NDIA will refuse to fund supports in relation to other disabilities, even if these are permanent, severe and meet access requirements in their own right. Equally the NDIA has no processes in places for reassessing a person’s eligibility once they are eligible. If you develop another disability that will never be approved, no such process exists.
Example, a person can be paralysed, and have supports funded for that. Due to some freak event they lose both eyes and fully permanently blind. Clearly the person is no longer able to move their own wheelchair, the NDIA will not fund support workers for that purpose, because they were granted access to the scheme on the basis of the paraplegia and there are no processes in place for adding other disabilities, Unless you are lucky enough to have both approved at access and most people are not, then they will never be added.
Equally a person is assessed at access on the basis of a reference package that is supposed to say the level of support likely needed for that person. For some that assessment is being done on very outdated information, but if the outdated information is enough to grant them access to the scheme, no further information is sought. They are then routinely being denied needed supports on the basis that the original reference package assessment said they had less support needs. Does not matter what level of updated information you now provide, the reference package will never be updated and is never reviewed, so people continually get inadequate plans, because no such reassessments can take place.
The NDIA has also deleted a persons approved disabilities without the person being notified. Most people are not even aware of why they are suddenly been deemed no longer entitled to certain supports, because the NDIA never notifies them. Unless the NDIA is formally removing you from the scheme, you will not be notified that other disabilities are now been deemed no approved. No appeal processes exist because there is no acknowledgement that such things occur.
There are cases of the NDIA funding approved physical disability related supports on the basis of medical and allied health evidence and ongoing significant functional impairment for over 5 years and then suddenly saying they will never be approved again because they are not related to the persons primary disability which is now the only one the NDIA will fund supports for. It is only through FOI that people even discover that whole disabilities and the medical and other allied health evidence it relies on have been removed from their records. But trying to submit other evidence is not possible because no such process exists.
Equally when people apply for the scheme they are told they only need to provide evidence in relation to their primary disability, but how can they then get support for other disability related needs.
People continue to have planning problems, continue to lodge complaints, and continue to lodge appeals, in most cases at a complete loss as to why essential supports are not being funded. But even when they find out, pay out thousands of dollars for new medical and other allied health information, the NDIA has no processes in place to assess it.
You cannot plan for someone, when you have no information on their multiple and complex needs, when you only accept half of their disabilities, when you delete a person’s medical records, when you delete whole disabilities without notification or the like.
There are also no processes in place for reassessing people within the scheme. Some of those with the most complex needs are still being planned for by local area coordinators, because no processes exist to re-stream them into more complex streams of support and to be planned for by more highly qualified, skilled and experienced planners.
The planning process will continue to fail, until there are formal processes in place to reassess a person’s individual disabilities, to update assessments to current levels of functioning, and to allow other disabilities to be added in. Equally planners need to be held to account for poor quality planning which in some cases are so bad people could die from it. Continuing to defend poor quality planning, and claim that professional development training will fix it is not ok and never will be.
Problems also exist when the NDIA will only fund supports for things that are considered severe functional impairment, if the person is a participant in the scheme. While other supports exist to support people with lower levels of impairment, once you are NDIA eligible you cannot use those supports. You cannot use those supports for one disability and not another, nor can you use them for some functional impairments and not others.
While states have existing statewide equipment programs in place you are only eligible for those things if you are not an NDIA participant, but if the NDIA refuses to accept those physical disabilities then how does a person get those support needs met? The person will die without support for other disabilities, yet will barely be able to move without supports being funded and no avenue exists for such funding. How do people on pensions afford such supports?