Disability Support Services Strategic Work Programme: Building on the New Deal

Disability Support Services Strategic Work Programme: Building on the New Deal
Date of publication: June 1998

Foreword
Over the last five years there has been significant change to the way disability support services are funded and delivered. Prior to the transfer of funding for these services from social welfare to health agencies in 1993, there was a wide-ranging debate on the merits of one agency over the other. The Government decided that funding for disability support services should be with one agency, and that was with health, through the regional health authorities.

Since 1993 there have been substantial improvements for people with disabilities and their families/whänau. Greater emphasis on community-based care and accessing care through a needs assessment and service co-ordination process has meant that more people are receiving services tailored to their actual needs.

There is a need for further progress in improving the way we deliver disability support services. We need to focus more on services to Mäori and Pacific people, and to those people with multiple disabilities. We must plan and prioritise in a way that focuses on individual needs while at the same time recognising that there will always be finite resources.

I am aware that for some people with disabilities there are aspects of the current funding arrangements that actually disempower them from making their own decisions about the services they need and who provides them. It is my view that we should look at how we can bring some flexibility into funding arrangements so that people who want to, and are able, can have the independence they seek to assist themselves.

The DSS Strategic Work Programme has been jointly developed by the Ministry of Health and the Health Funding Authority to build on the progress already achieved in disability support services and to address areas of concern that still remain.

The work programme included in this document is designed to give service providers, consumers and their representatives a comprehensive overview of the direction that the Ministry of Health and the Health Funding Authority are taking over the next three to five years.

The recent announcement that health would not be exempt from the Human Rights Act 1993 is significant for providers of disability support services. The Government’s announcement means no change to the current law as far as health and disability support services are concerned.

As Minister of Health, I am committed to three broad goals for services for people with disabilities:

maximising independence
effective habilitation and rehabilitation
supporting opportunities to participate.

The work programme outlined in this document will go a long way towards meeting these goals.

Hon Bill English
Minister of Health

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