Disability in New Zealand

News and Publications

Disability Services Newsletter

In this issue:

Launch of the Lu’i Ola Pacific Disability Plan
Geraldine’s update
New Disability Information and Advisory Service (DIAS) for people with a learning disability
ID Residential Service Development Project: Transparent Pricing Model Rollout
Consumer forums, hui, fono
Residential Services for People with a Physical Disability Project
Staff movements
Budget initiatives for 2007/2008 financial year
Ministry of Health publications
Contact us

This newsletter is also available in PDF format:
Disability Directorate Provider Newsletter, Issue 20 - May 2007 (PDF, 315 KB)

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Launch of the Lu’i Ola Pacific Disability Plan

The Lu’i Ola Auckland Pacific Disability Plan was formally launched in Auckland on 20 April by the Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban, Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector and Associate Minister of Pacific Island Affairs.

Lu’i Ola has been co-sponsored by the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs (MPIA) and has been endorsed by twelve local and regional Government agencies including the three District Health Boards (DHB) in the Auckland region. Disabled Pacific people and their families around Auckland have been involved in developing the plan and have formally supported the end result.

The Plan outlines nine key areas:

1. All of the government agency workforce is culturally competent to work with Pacific disabled people
2. Pacific service providers are competently providing services as needed by the sector
3. The Pacific communities and workforce are well informed of disability and available services
4. Shared consultation processes for agencies with Pacific communities are in place
5. Increase Pacific attendance at service reviews (e.g. IEPs)
6. Shared assessment occurs where possible
7. A virtual (telephone) central point of contact for all government agencies is available to disabled Pacific people and their families
8. A personal navigation service is available for disabled Pacific people and their families who require further support
9. Housing modification and equipment processes are streamlined.

The plan focuses on improving disability support services for Pacific people that are funded by a number of different organisations. It looks at how current service provision in Auckland can become more streamlined, responsive and accessible. Better service integration will provide benefits and improve access to services for Pacific people, their family, whanu and aiga.

The vision is that these services will:

• be consumer-driven
• be family focused
• have culturally competent staff
• be seamless
• be well-publicised
• have adequate funding
• support community development
• encourage health promotion
• be collaborative

From left: Fuimoana Les McCarthy (MPIA), Hon Luamanvao Winnie Laban (MP), Hemi Toia (ACC) and Geraldine Woods (MoH).

From left: Manase Lua (MoH), Geraldine Woods (MoH) and Tony Pole (MPIA).

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Geraldine’s update

Geraldine Woods
Deputy Director-General, Disability Services

Well it’s been a busy couple of months at the Directorate with our programme of consumer forum, hui and fono kicking off in March. We have held 25 meetings so far and with 4 more to go we are on the home stretch. It’s been great for me to be able to feed back some of the things we’ve put in place since last years meetings and to hear what’s working and not working for our service users and their families and whanau.

Another exciting development in April was the launch of the Auckland Pacific Disability Plan – a great example of the many agencies who support disabled people, working together to improve services. Our challenge now is to look at how we can use this regional plan to develop a national one.

Last week the new budget was announced and we received an injection of more than $80 million dollars next year, and a long-term commitment from the Government to continue to improve the disability support sector. This new funding is for some new initiatives and to improve current services. You can see later in the newsletter the programmes/areas that have received additional funding.

We have also seen over recent months the start of a new national disability information advisory service (DIAS) for people with a learning disability. A contract was awarded to People First to provide this service. In line with improving the accessibility and availability of information about disability support services we are in the process of having information put in alternative formats such as audio tapes, audio/visual formats on the web and creating a DVD that will include NZ Sign Language, captioning and other languages. This will help us improve the way we communicate with the sector and help ensure that disabled people have access to information in a format they can use.

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New Disability Information and Advisory Service (DIAS) for people with a learning disability


In February 2007 People First signed a contract with the Ministry of Health to set up a national Disability Information and Advisory Service (DIAS).

The People First Disability Information and Advisory Service will give information about learning (intellectual) disability.

People First National Committee is happy that we are going to be able to keep the national orgainsation going into the future as well as set up a service that will help people with a learning disability and their family/ whanau in the community.

People First will be working hard at making information easy to understand. We will be using plain language information, as well as things like posters, charts and making DVDs.

The service will be a one stop shop where we can provide easy to understand information and good advice.

People First will build strong networks in the community so that if we don’t know the information we know where we can find it.

People First will be working hard with other DIAS to help them build their capacity to provide plain language information.

Susan McDonald, National Chairperson says “It is going to be so good to have information that has been designed directly for us”.

The DIAS contract gives People First the opportunity to have more members actively involved in the organisation.

The People First DIAS is going to have a big focus on delivering information directly to people through face to face meetings in local areas.

We will be training up People First members and assistant’s to be delivering the information.

The contract is going to be able to provide learning and leadership opportunities for people with a learning disability.

People with a learning disability will be building socially valued roles in our communities which is really important for people to be able to have ordinary lives.

People First would like to thank the Ministry of Health for working with People First and supporting us to apply for the national contract.

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ID Residential Service Development Project: Transparent Pricing Model Rollout

If you are involved with a DSD-funded residential service you are likely to already know about this development project which began in April 2006. This project will ensure that residential services, for approximately 6,000 people who have an intellectual disability, are funded using a transparent pricing model (TPM).

In 2006 needs assessors and service coordinators were trained to use TPM tools and processes. This training programme was prepared and delivered by a specialist team led by Jan White. Providers and the Ministry of Health’s (Ministry) Contract Relationship Managers also had opportunities to participate in TPM orientation training.

The Ministry is currently looking at how best to provide ongoing moderation of needs assessment and service coordination (NASC) agencies TPM related work and is also responding to concerns about costs not being adequately covered by the model. These issues, reported by stakeholders, led to an action plan being agreed with the National Residential Intellectual Disability (NRID) providers group in late 2006.

Ministry and provider representatives reached a ID Residential Service Development Project: Transparent Pricing Model Rollout consensus agreement on 31 January 2007 that providers would support the NASC process to reassess and review support packages for people whose needs assessments were not current. Data from these NASC reassessments will ultimately inform the TPM implementation. However, the Ministry would like to reassure providers that their support of the NASC reassessment process will not be interpreted as unspoken acceptance of any TPM allocation that might result from a reassessment.

The Ministry is committed to working closely with provider representatives to resolve TPM issues and is aware that providers are concerned about future levels of funding under TPM. Stakeholders have been assured that the amount on average per person providers are currently receiving will be maintained during an agreed period of transition which is yet to be defined.

NRID has been funded to employ independent specialists to gather a representative sample of provider costs. These costs, which will be presented to the Ministry in May 2007, will be used as a basis for further discussions and planning. Enquiries about this project can be directed to Anne Bell on Anne_Bell@moh.govt.nz or 04 496 2122.

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Consumer forums, hui, fono

The consumer forum programme is in its final month. This year we extended the programme from 18 meetings to 28 and visited many centres we hadn’t been to before. The feedback so far has been very positive with disabled people and their families using this opportunity to speak to members of DSD about any concerns and issues they have with the disability support services we fund. It also gave us an opportunity to let people know what we did about the issues raised last year.

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Residential Services for People with a Physical Disability Project

DSD would like to thank those residents and providers who took the time to respond to our recent surveys for Residential Services for People with a Physical Disability.

We received responses from approximately 250 residents and 106 providers. An acknowledgement letter will soon be sent to all those who responded to our survey.

The information you have sent us is now being looked at. The results of the survey will be used to help DSD develop a work plan to determine how best to provide Residential Services for People with a Physical Disability. We will keep you informed as the project progresses. Updates will also be added to the DSD website at www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/disability-aboutdsd-keyprojects.

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Staff movements

We have had a number of staff leave or change jobs within DSD over the last few months.

Operations Team
Two Contract Relationship Managers (CRM) have left Southern Operations and two CRMs have left Northern Operations.
Pete Carter – CRM – Northland, National DIAS contracts.
Therese Weir – CRM – Counties Manukau DHB and NASC.
Erica Heely – CRM – Nelson/Marlborough, National Idea contract.
Andrea Johnson – CRM – Hawkes Bay, Wairarapa, Wanganui.

Annette Brown has been appointed CRM for Hawke’s Bay, Wairarapa and Wanganui. Annette was previously the Contract Analyst for Southern Operations.

Sarah Hamlin has also taken a full time position as the CRM covering Environmental Support Service contracts. Sarah has been doing this job for the past year as a contractor.

Patrick Labotsky was the EA for the Southern Operations. He has now joined the Planning and Development Team as the Senior Planning Administrator.

Policy Team
Pamela Burns – Senior Policy Analyst left the Ministry in January. Policy Analyst Rebecca
Purcell-Hewitt went on a years parental leave in January also.

Planning and Development Team
Vickie Rydz is leaving the team to take up a position with the National Screening Unit at the Ministry. Vickie was the Development Manager Physical and Sensory.

Business Support Team
Prashantha Padiyar, Financial Analyst, left the Ministry in May.

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Budget initiatives for 2007/2008 financial year

The Government has announced extra funding will be allocated to Disability Services over the next four years. Most of this funding will continue through to the 2011/12 financial year and beyond.

Environmental Support Services
Environmental Support Services (ESS) has received a $48 million dollar allocation over four years for improving equipment and modification services for disable people of all ages.

Ideas that are being considered for improvement are:

• increasing the level of the hearing aid subsidy
• extending the age of eligibility for the spectacle subsidy
• providing visual alert systems (such as visual smoke alarms) for Deaf and hearing impaired people
• providing a wider range of positioning equipment
• extending criteria to cover some housing modifications in second homes
• extending access to vehicle modifications for some groups of disabled people.

Work has started to approve the new funding initiatives and develop funding guidelines so that the changes can be circulated to all relevant parties as soon as possible.

Home based support services
Home based support services (HBSS) will receive a $32 million dollar allocation over four years to improve this sector.

This funding will go towards funding providers on a more sustainable basis so that providers can start to address the issues around recruitment, retention, and training of quality staff, such as increasing the average hourly rate paid to HBSS providers to help boost wages and enable providers to be more flexible about the services they deliver to their clients.

Areas of investment are:

• More competitive remuneration and improved employment conditions
• investment in staff training and quality improvement

Autism Spectrum Disorder
$17.5 million dollars has been allocated over the next four years to improve outcomes for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their families and whanau.

An impact analysis is being conducted as part of the recent draft ASD Guideline consultation. This analysis will provide evidence of current gaps across health, disability and education. The new funding will help address priority gaps in services and help us to continue to respond to the needs of children with ASD and their families and whanau through service development.

IDCCR
More than $12 million dollars has been allocated over the next four years to support the ongoing development of Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care & Rehabilitation) and High and Complex services. This money will address issues arising from managing an increase in the number of people coming under the IDCCR Act and secure services within the community. It will also help us develop workforce initiatives that will improve the skill base of professionals working within ID(CC&R) services and help address some of the work force issues.

Support for families
$6 million dollars has been allocated over the next four years to support families and carers of young disabled people.

This new money will help us to respond to immediate demands for respite services. It will also allow us to start to focus on future developmental work to broaden support options for families, whanau and aiga.

Cochlear implants
Just over $8 million dollars has been allocated over the next four years to cochlear implant programmes. This will help ensure cochlear implants are available to an increased number of adults who become profoundly deaf. It will also help ensure funding for profoundly deaf newborns that could benefit from this technology.

The additional new money will ensure that at least 20 adults per year will receive a cochlear implant. The new money also includes one-off funding over the next two years for an additional 50 cochlear implants for adults who have been waiting for some time for this technology.

The budget also includes funding for children’s cochlear implants is in preparation for the roll out of the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Programme (UNHSP) and the expected earlier identification of profoundly deaf newborns.

Residential Support Services
Residential Support Services for younger disabled people will receive $44 million dollars over the next four years for .

This funding is to allow providers to continue to address low wages in the residential sector. It is expected that the funding will:

• Help compensate any providers affected by the increase in the Minimum Wage to $11.25 / hour.
• Allow wage-related recognition of staff training and experience to continue.
• Provide for a general wage increase for providers already paying above Minimum Wage.

This funding demonstrates the ongoing commitment of the Government to address low wages in the disability sector.

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Ministry of Health publications

Unless otherwise specified, you can obtain copies of all Ministry of Health publications from:

Ministry of Health
C/O Wickliffe Limited
PO Box 932
Dunedin
Tel: (04) 4962277 (Wellington)
Fax: (03) 479 0979 (Dunedin)
Email: moh@wickliffe.co.nz

Ministry of Health publications are also available on our website: www.moh.govt.nz/publications

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Contact us

Free phone:
0800 DSD MOH
0800 373 664
- Option1 for general information
- Option 2 for complaints

Free fax:
0800 000 838

Email:
disability@moh.govt.nz
dsdcomplaints@moh.govt.nz