Making sure people with disability are safe and have quality supports

The NDIS Review has been set up by the Federal Government to look at the design, operations and sustainability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). It is also looking for ways to make the market and workforce more responsive, supportive and sustainable.

The NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework (the Framework) says what governments will do to keep NDIS participants safe and make sure the services they receive are good quality.

The NDIS Review wanted to know what people think about whether the Framework is useful and how to make it better.

We know disability advocates know a lot about these topics as they are often involved in trying to:

• make sure people with disability are safe from violence, abuse, neglect or exploitation;
• help people navigate systems to find better supports; and
• support people to fix problems and make complaints about poor quality or mistreatment.

Over the years, DANA has heard from disability advocates around the country about the problems and gaps in the area of safeguarding and quality, and there are many barriers people with disability face when needing to make a complaint or report violence or neglect. There is often too much responsibility falling on people with disability to take action or complain when things go wrong.

In this submission DANA has made 14 recommendations, including on

• what we think is and is not working well;
• the ongoing need for and role of a Framework for safety, quality and rights; and
• how we think the Framework could work better to safeguard the rights of people with disability.

DANA has recommended that:

• people with disability can find a disability advocate when they need one;
• the role of independent advocates be recognised and better resourced;
• the future Framework makes clearer the roles of different actors in keeping people safe, and checking on and improving quality of NDIS supports;
• processes for people with disability to complain are made better, simpler and more responsive.

With our NDIS Reviews engagement plan, DANA will be engaging more with disability advocates around the country to hear their views and refine ideas for how safeguarding and quality can be improved for people with disability.

You can read the full submission here: DANA Submission to NDIS Review – Quality and Safeguarding Framework Issues Paper.pdf

We thank the many advocacy organisations around Australia for contributing their expertise and insight on these topics during many surveys and discussion forums we have held during the Disability Royal Commission (and previously). You can find deidentified transcripts and other submissions here:  Voices of Advocacy