Allowing disability organisations to provide more standby capacity when needed, and bolstering coordination from hospital to disability care, will ease the crisis confronting the disability care sector, Aruma CEO Dr Martin Laverty said.
Failure to coordinate people with disabilities moving from hospitals and nursing homes to appropriate disability care has been a decade-long flaw of the NDIS.
“Before the invention of the NDIS, State and Territory Governments worked with disability organisations to provide modest standby capacity. And while never perfect, these organisations helped people with disability move from hospital to disability care,” he said.
“For young people in aged care, there are often no suitable disability care places available in their local area. This poor coordination of pathways from state hospitals or private aged care services to disability care needs urgent reform.”
Laverty has backed NDIS Minister Bill Shorten’s initiative to prioritise transition of people with disabilities from hospital to disability care and has written to the Prime Minister’s Improving Care Pathways Taskforce proposing expanded NDIS standby services.
“Aruma has immediate capacity in some regions to accommodate people with disabilities currently occupying public hospital beds. With proper planning, more capacity in priority regions could be unlocked. The cost of supporting a person with disabilities in hospital can be up to four times more than the cost of support in disability care,” he said.