Young falling through gaps in National Disability Insurance Scheme

YOUNG people should be able to access the NDIS now because they will not receive specialist care, the sector has warned.

YOUNG people with severe impairments confined to nursing homes should be able to access the National Disability Insurance Scheme now because they will not receive specialist care, ­although the sector has warned that the flagship program has made things worse than ever.

Submissions to a Senate inquiry into the adequacy of existing residential care arrangements for young people with severe physical, mental or intellectual disabilities highlight a key flaw of the NDIS: its inability to work with health, aged care and other agencies.

Aged and Community Services Australia says young people should be given access to the NDIS now but criticised the artificial entry barrier for over 65s.

“It remains problematic to ­assume that people reaching the age of 65 can easily choose to  either continue receiving support through the disability care system or transfer to the aged care ­system and be subject to all the ­financial and assessment ­arrangements which exist in that system,” the submission says.

“One of the most significant shortcomings with this assumption is the fact that the funds available for a person receiving aged care tend to be significantly lower than those for a person with disability.”

The Australian revealed in ­December the cost of the NDIS will balloon from $22 billion to $28bn — not including inflation — between 2021 and 2044 due to people growing old in the scheme.

However, those who acquire a disability after the age of 65 will have access only to the aged care system while, ACSA argues, those who were in the scheme already and choose to stay with it beyond the age of 65 will still need aged care services. The federal government assumed the extra $6bn would be a straight swap from the aged care sector to the NDIS, but that is not the case, ACSA says.

Young People in Nursing Homes National Alliance spokeswoman Bronwyn Mork­ham told the inquiry nothing had changed in the past decade, ­despite previous inquiries. “In fact, the advent of the NDIS has never seen the situation more dire,” she said. “Redirection of scarce disability funding by the states to acquit their co-funding arrangements with the NDIS and the resultant reduction in service supply and funding for those outside the trial sites has sent this issue rapidly backwards.”

In its submission, the Summer Foundation says almost 60 per cent of young people in aged care who live in the NDIS trial sites do not have access to the scheme because they rarely have anyone to explain the process.

The inquiry has heard stories of social isolation and lack of ­options. “I don’t really have much to do with the other people where I live because two years ago someone I was friends with died,” James Bailey, 28, says in his submission. “My decision then was don’t befriend any of the old people because tomorrow you never know who might be dead.”