To whom it may concern
I am the nominee for my daughter who is an NDIS participant. Please let me know if you require any further information on the issues below.
Access
The 3 issues I’d like to raise include cost of applying, clear requirements for applications and follow up.
There was a significant cost involved in getting the diagnoses and reports which underpinned our application. Without us getting specific reports commissioned to document my daughter’s functional limitations she would not have got access or the funding she needs. This is because she did not have a ongoing relationship with any health professional that could have assessed her function and written a report on her functional limitations. There needs to be funding availability and offered for functional assessments up front before acceptance to ensure the cost is not prohibitive to apply. I understand cost of applying is an issue for many people.
We initially applied and due to a scanning issue only every 2nd page came out. NDIA were aware of this issue but did not contact us to resolve this issue for many months to let us know that this needed to be rectified. I understand that bureaucratic mistakes are an issue for many people.
When the first application was rejected we received a letter to say that my daughter did not meet the set criteria. In actual fact when I called up to find out why and based on the final acceptance it was that we did not provide the information quite in the way NDIA wanted it. Therefore there should be clearer guidance on what is required by NDIA. I understand that getting the info right is an issue for many people and that significant persistence is required.
Market issues
I have had significant issues trying to get the right supports in place, for example have spent 6 months on a waiting list for an agency managed behavioural specialist (the plan was for 6 months only) and we were rejected by over 20 support coordination agencies trying to get a support coordinator for my daughter. When we did finally get someone she was very inexperienced and provided an inadequate service. I understand this issue has also been an issue for many others.
Planning
An issue I’d like to raise re planning is how urgent cases are treated. My daughter was classified as urgent according to the NDIS criteria - her planning meeting was prioritised but then it took months for her plan to be approved. I later found out there was guidelines/processes for the management of urgent cases. None of these were used in relation to my daughter. I imagine this is also an issue for others.
Review - unscheduled and change of circumstance
I submitted a review for my daughter in feb / March this year and again she met the urgent criteria due to risk of homelessness. Like many others our review requests have not been actioned.
Scheduled review
My daughter’s end of plan meeting review was held recently. There was no contact from NDIA, I had to contact them, when I did I was told I had to have the meeting urgently or my daughter would have no funding. An issue with my daughter’s gap plans is that she has had 3 plans within 3 weeks leading to her having service discontinuity issues. Each time she got a new plan she had to redo service bookings these had to be re-done, if the $ was agency managed NDIA was not able to do this fast enough to keep her meal prep services continuing leaving to service gaps for my daughter. If this component had of been plan managed this would not have been a problem.
When my daughter had her meeting, the planner seemed very inexperienced, made up answers if she did not the answer, rushed through and did not finish the meeting, did not follow up on my request to meet again to finish the meeting, said she would follow up on some urgent issues and get back to me and never did. Since then I and my daughter’s support coordinator have tried to contact the office multiple times and have not heard back from them (over a month).
Communication
On many issues I have had to contact NDIA and the 1800 number. There is little consistency in the answers you get from the 1800 call centre, they are often wrong and when you ask for someone to call you back they rarely do. I understand this is also an issue for many other people.
Funds management
I requested plan management and some items are self managed / agency managed with no explanation. This does not seem consistent with the Act and I understand is an issue for my daughter and others due to limited markets and the difficulties of dealing with NDIA for agency managed components.
One other issue I’d to raise is the significant transaction costs to me of having to deal with the NDIS - I spend 1-2 hours per day in a variety of activities including calling NDIA to get them to action an urgent issue or just call me back etc. it is exhausting.