In June 2013, the Queensland Public Advocate called for submissions to an Inquiry into the situation of individuals with disability in long stay health care facilities in Queensland.

The Public Advocate’s Report was tabled in the Queensland Parliament on 7 November 2013.

In her report, Queensland Public Advocate, Jodie Cook, called for far reaching systemic reform and collaboration between Queensland’s health and disability services to resolve this longstanding problem.

While recognising the evolutionary nature of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), the Young People In Nursing Homes National Alliance believes the NDIS Bill 2012 needs to build key features into the Scheme design to meet the requirements of both the launch phase, longer term operation and community expectation.

The Young People In Nursing Homes National Alliance congratulates the Commissioners on their draft report into Disability Care and Support.

While the Alliance supports the general thrust of the report, we believe that scheme design elements as outlined in the draft report can be improved; and the links with existing community sector infrastructure can be harnessed to make the NIIS and the NDIS schemes more effective and viable.

The key element that the Alliance believes needs to be comprehensively reviewed is that of the Disability Service Organisations – a key part of the Alliance’s construction of these new schemes in its first submission. As the front end of the new schemes, these vital organisations need to do much more than just the role of financial intermediary that was ascribed to them in the draft report.

In the Alliance’s view, these organisations are key to the success of the new schemes because of their capacity to provide comprehensive and inclusive assessment and planning, manage service providers, ensure plans are being implemented appropriately, promote and involve local community and volunteers and, most importantly of all perhaps, proactively manage consumer and provider expectation around what the scheme can or cannot deliver.