NDIS CEO Rebecca Falkingham admits staff don’t read costly medical reports

NDIS chief executive Rebecca Falkingham has made a shocking admission about the agency’s limitations over the thousands of criminals, including sex offenders, who are accessing its services.

At least 2695 criminals including sex offenders, violent criminals and possibly terrorists are accessing NDIS services, with 410 classified as high risk, a Senate Estimates committee heard.

While convicted criminals are eligible for access to support like anyone else, Senator Linda Reynolds raised concerns about the safety of NDIS workers, citing the case of Thomas Hofer, a convicted rapist, who advertised on Facebook for young, female support workers.

It also follows recent media reports that allege people on a terrorist watchlist have access to NDIS transport.

National Disability Insurance Agency CEO Rebecca Falkingham said the agency was heavily reliant on the states and territories to provide lists of offenders and at the moment they only have a limited history.

Despite a recent request from the agency, WA has not yet provided information on convicted criminals.

“So, we may have other sex offenders, violent criminals and terrorists that are on the NDIS we have no knowledge of and their support workers will be completely unaware?” Sen Reynolds said.

The agency said all those deemed high risk were agency managed, rather than self managed, so there was some control over how they accessed services and there were discussions with providers about the suitability of support workers for these people.

Senator Linda Reynolds during the Community Affairs Estimates at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Earlier during the hearing it was revealed NDIS staff who are making funding decisions about the needs of disabled claimants are not reading their medical reports.

Ms Falkingham made the shocking admission when answering concerns from Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes about how frustrating it is for participants when their medical reports are ignored during their assessments.

People on the disability scheme are often asked by the agency planners to provide further evidence via medical reports. Taxpayer money is used to fund many of these reports, which can cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

“To be really frank about it, my staff can’t read 280 page reports that they get,” Ms Falkingham told the Senate Community Legislation Committee.

“They can’t do that in that dedicated kind of way.”

Senator Hollie Hughes. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Ms Falkingham also added that some of what is in the reports are “not things we can consider under the act, so I can understand that frustration”.

Sen Hughes told the committee people spend a lot of money getting these reports ahead of their planning meetings.

“They produce them and no-one reads them,” Sen Hughes, said, to which Ms Falkingham said, “that’s right”.

Ms Falkingham said she hoped this problem would be resolved with a new streamlined support assessment tool due to be rolled out in September, which will free up “all those allied health staff to be delivering services not to be producing reports”.

She said the new tools will be introduced slowly over a five-year period, with lots of testing along the way, and they are currently recruiting staff.

Sen Hughes expressed concern about whether those staff would be appropriately skilled, saying some current planners were not.

“Planners have no experience at all, they ask questions as to when do they grow out of autism?” she said. “Are (new staff) going to have experience or specific knowledge of these disabilities?”

Rebecca Falkingham, chief executive officer of the National Disability Insurance Agency, appears at the Community Affairs Estimates at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Ms Falkingham said the new support needs assessors will have “deep expertise and knowledge” and the new system will allow people with a disability to meet these assessors in their own communities.

She said there were plans underway to skill up staff across various disabilities. Currently there are teams working on Motor Neurone disease, early onset dementia and palliative care pathways.

Concerns around the number of people involved in each person’s case before participants are able to access services were dismissed by the agency, saying they will only be connected with two or three people before receiving support, not up to seven as Sen Hughes feared.

The committee also heard how staffing numbers at the NDIS watchdog have almost doubled since June 2022, from 509 to 989 and that extra funding, including an additional $160.3m over four years, was helping to deal with an increase in the number of complaints.

In 2022-2023 there were 16,305 complaints, of which the commission closed 12,224. In the last financial year that jumped to 29,732, which was 80 per cent higher, and they resolved 15,083. In the first half of this financial year, there were 16,649 complaints, slightly less than expected, but in the last quarter the watchdog had closed 22,247, helping to reduce some of that backlog.

NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission Associate Commissioner Natalie Wade, said they were seeing a marked increase in the number of individuals with a disability making complaints.

Originally published as NDIS CEO Rebecca Falkingham admits staff don’t read costly medical reports