NDIS It’s going to be a rocky road!

I’m giving a shout out to the lovely Monroe who works for my local council in the Aged & Disability service team. And I’m doing so for two reasons.

1. He has bothered to read my blog!
2. He is interested in my opinion of the upcoming NDIS.

This is my answer.

Some years ago, I was at a meeting with other leaders and advocates in my sector who were being asked some serious questions about the NDIS. Grassroots stuff.

Questions like, how quickly could people be covered by the NDIS? When they moved to an area/or even came to this country. (Couldn’t fathom they hadn’t worked these ones out without our help, however)

Obviously, they were really concerned people would flock to the pilot regions to get on board early. In Victoria the pilot region has been the Barwon District which is Geelong.

That of course would put more pressure on other services already in place. Service providers, HACC services, public housing, affordable private rental, etc, etc. Service providers have also moved into those area’s to cash-in on the ‘new’ business.

A year and a half later I was at a conference and service providers in attendance were saying the opposite was happening. People were actually relocating out of the area because they had decided “it was too hard!” They did however get to take their “funding” with them.

So I guess, I have many opinions about it already and this is just a start.

I’m going to be bold and say it will succeed and everyone with a disability will be taken care of however I’ll say that it’s been a long time coming and it will take time to perfect.

The changes I’ve noticed over the years leading up to its launch and it’s the level of disability I have now compared to 8 years ago,include the moving around of service providers funding and financial assistance. I suggest that funding I was once able to call on for say, seeing a private dentist of my choice has gone to other areas. And when I get the NDIS I will be choosing to return to those private businesses, rather than going public and wondering about the quality of the services I’m receiving.

I think the government don’t yet know what it will cost to fully implement the NDIS. I think staff, carers, whoever will be the NDIS will end up looking very different to what they think it Is going to look like. It’s going to be, or should be fluid until they get it sorted.

Right now there are many service providers struggling to find and keep their places in the industry because everyone is waiting for the NDIS to “fix all the problems”. No one wants to spend their own money and they expect their clients already in the system to wait for this big bandaid.

I have a great analogy for what this currently looks like on the ground, but it will have to wait. I have been hearing about this miracle the NDIS for about 9 years and it’s been like a white light at the end of the tunnel. And on the downside, I’ve had pretty shitty Case Management who dragged their feet on applying for a Package of Funding from DHS because they said it would never be approved for payment. Therefore, the felt the success rate did not warrant their effort.

You know the answers you get for the questions you never ask? No! So you might as well ask. Is what I say!

Think of all the things you need and just ASK for it! I don’t think they will be advertising all the things that might be covered by the NDIS, because they will be trying to save money.  So I will suggest Networking & sharing information is going to be vital. Listen to what other users/consumers are applying for, you might be surprised. If it’s relevant for you apply for it also. And then tell your friends.

Lastly, I think there will be more control for us to choose who provides our services & sometimes competition is a good thing. It means those providers with bad history of poor case management will not survive.

To be continued for sure…