Page 947 - Week 03 - Thursday, 10 April 2014
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Since the release of the commission’s report, work has been progressing nationally on the development of the national disability insurance scheme and its companion scheme, the national injury insurance scheme. This scheme will meet the ACT’s commitment to establish a national injury insurance scheme and will coincide with the rollout of the NDIS. The bill will establish the lifetime care and support scheme in the ACT to commence on 1 July 2014 and will apply in respect of injury from motor vehicle accidents. As all members are I am sure aware, all governments around the country have agreed to national minimum benchmarks for a national injury insurance scheme in the case of motor vehicle accidents.
The purpose of the benchmarks is to facilitate broad consistency in scheme coverage across Australia, at least to the level of the agreed minimum benchmarks. Jurisdictions may, of course, exceed these minimum benchmarks and, in fact, the scheme to be implemented under the bill will exceed the minimum benchmarks in the treatment and care needs that can be provided to participants.
In addition to the needs identified in the minimum benchmarks, the ACT will also provide workplace educational modifications for participants where this is assessed to be reasonable and necessary. To be eligible to participate in the scheme, an injured person will have been catastrophically injured in a motor vehicle accident. A catastrophically injured person is a person with spinal cord injuries, moderate to severe brain injury, amputations, severe burns or permanent blindness. The scheme will provide for the treatment and care needs of injured persons where the injury was acquired as a pedestrian, a cyclist, or as a motorbike or a motor vehicle user, as long as there is at least one registrable vehicle involved in the motor vehicle accident.
The bill establishes what are the treatment and care needs and sets out the framework for assessment of treatment and care needs, dispute mechanisms and the functions and powers of a lifetime care and support scheme commissioner. The bill also establishes a financial framework which provides an appropriate level of transparency and accountability for the lifetime care and support levy and associated fund.
The bill allows for guidelines to be made under the scheme. Whilst the act is the primary legislative basis for the scheme and sets the principles and frameworks for the scheme, the proposed guidelines will provide further operational detail, such as detailed criteria for making decisions around eligibility based on medical assessment criteria and tools.
The delegation of such operational detail, in particular to the extent that it is a technical medical matter, is a common and appropriate approach. It allows for the appropriate flexibility in the guidelines for adopting different medical assessment tools, in line with national developments and reviews of these tools, as you would expect, from time to time. The guidelines will specify the factors to be considered in deciding what is reasonable and necessary.
These factors will reflect nationally agreed minimum benchmarks. Broadly, these factors will require consideration of the benefit to the participant, appropriateness of the service or request, the appropriateness of the provider, relationship of the service or request to the injury sustained in the accident and cost-effectiveness considerations.
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