We are writing to express our extreme disappointment with the way that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is being administered.
The question to you is what the coalition’s plan for the NDIA is moving forward in the next term of government if you were to be re-elected. That is, are there any planned changes or improvements to the assessment criteria and staff training.
This letter is also being sent to the Labour candidate.
The quality and detail of the response will translate to real votes in the upcoming election. Given the stories that we have heard from just our associations the number of votes would be in the thousands. A copy of the response from yourself and the Labour candidate will be circulated.
Be careful with your reply. Having dealt with Government departments regarding disability for 27 years we have a very keen BS detector and won’t be placated with weasel words and grandiose text that offers no detail.
The NDIS staff that we have encountered have been poorly trained, have extremely poor people skills and do not understand, or appear to want to understand, daily disability needs. For a scheme that has been running trial sites since 2013 and the full roll out commencing on from July 1st, 2016, either the scheme is flawed and is being implemented by fools or there is a deliberate strategy to frustrate and payout as little as possible.
The funding of the NDIS has meant that all of the pre-existing services and support structures are no longer available. The NDIS to the only options.
The Federal Government, through the NDIS, has made itself responsible for supporting the disabled. Your bureaucratic heavy scheme is responsible for the lives of real people who need the support that you have promised.
Please advise if your promise to the disabled is a CORE PROMISE or other.
Yours Sincerely,
Stephen, Leslee and B Fleming
Example
As an example of the performance of the NDIA we have included the documented experience of our
son B with the NDIA. B is 27 years old. Disability Services Queensland has determined that he
has the highest-level intellectual need and highest level physical need requiring 24/7 support. Amongst other basic tasks, B is not able to communicate his needs, shower himself, get a meal or even a drink of water for himself, dress himself, pull his own pants down, toilet himself nor wipe his own bottom and he has no safety awareness.
B received his first NDIS plan dated 25 July 2018. The first point to note is that it was a stated goal of the NDIS that no one would be worse off. B remains worse off.
The following attachments document the communication with the NDIA since the initial plan.
- Review request was lodged on 23/10/2018
Multiple documents were provided to support the review request.
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NDIA response to the review delay 7/12/2018 The response stated that the NDIA has a high amount of review applications and B has not been allocated a reviewer. A review is only required if the original assessment does not meet the needs of the individual. The NDIA has a duty to determine why so many reviews are being requested. It may be signalling a failure in the process.
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email from NDIA’s T 10/1/2019 T provides an email stating that “there is sufficient funds available” inferring that no further funds are required.
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Response to email from NDIA’s T 10/1/2019 The response states that B plan is not underutilised. A portion of the CORE supports was set up incorrectly by NDIS in the first instance which we have been unaware also, Centacare had not provided an invoice for the previous 5 months. We reached out to the NDIA Plan Manager Cl on the day for assistance as the bank details were saying NOT DONE yet. This was done on 29/8/18 (as per the portal). We are still waiting to be contacted by C to sort this out so that a lot of outstanding invoices could be paid which will solve the UNDERUTILISATION issue
The lack of attention by T to determine why there were sufficient funds available prior to firing off his smug response shows a lack of training by NDIA.
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Follow up letter to Review meeting 13/3/2019 Multiple documents were provided to support the review request including a letter from B geneticist and orthopaedic surgeon.
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Complaint regarding NDIA’s K 25/3/2019 The Plan review meeting was held on 22 February 2019. During the meeting and a further phone
conversation with B advocate on 18 March 2019, K had been condescending,
confrontational and arrogant. In both instances it was apparent that K did not wish to understand Mr Fleming’s disability. On 18 March 2019 K advised that she would not be funding the supports requested as ‘it was not related to his disability’ despite numerous medical reports addressing the functional impacts of Mr Flemings disability – 1q43q44 deletion syndrome.
Similar to T approach demonstrated in Item 4 above, K approach demonstrates
arrogance and shows a lack of understanding that she is dealing with vulnerable people. Does this indicate only a lack of training or is there a wider cultural issue in the NDIA.
- email regarding lack of response 29/3/2019 B advocate received a phone call from S NDIA National Complaints Team on 26/3/2019. S
stated that he would contact the manager of Mount Gravatt and will ask them to call me – hopefully this afternoon. This email was sent due to the lack of response from Mt Gravatt NDIA office.
- NDIA Plan review 5/04/2019 As per K phone call on 18 March 2019 (Item 6 above) B request for additional
supports have not been funded.
At the review meeting held on 22 February 2019, the DSQ assessment was acknowledged by K
Also, K herself discovered multiple errors in B original NDIA assessment. Yet these facts
have been ignored when determining the Review outcomes.
The facts presented in the Geneticist letter provided have been disregarded by reference to an “article” that was an initiative of a support group in England and Wales.
It gets better… in the review response it states that “A general review of online literature…” – Dear God, medical advice is being disregarded by a google search!!!!