Page 954 - Week 03 - Thursday, 10 April 2014
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MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (12.17): I move amendment No 3 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 1006].
Clause 25 says:
The LTCS commissioner is not liable for legal costs for legal services provided to a participant in the LTCS scheme in relation to an assessment of the participant’s treatment and care needs.
If you are under the control of the commission in this regard, and if you disagree with a decision, I think it is reasonable to try and get some advice on how to combat that. Again I go back to the last report I have been able to find from New South Wales. There were a number of recommendations which led me to move this amendment. Recommendation 3, for instance, says:
That the Lifetime Care and Support Authority evaluate the current medical assessment tools used to assess eligibility criteria, and investigate and report on any alternative and/or additional tools or strategies that may be appropriately used to avoid inequity in Scheme eligibility. The Authority should consult with stakeholders during this process.
Recommendation 6 says:
That the Lifetime Care and Support Authority collaborate with the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Directorate, the State Spinal Cord Injury Service, the Children’s Hospital at Westmead and other service providers to simplify and standardise forms with a view to minimising the duplication of information and limiting the administrative burden on service providers.
In some of the reports that I have been able to read, there seems to be a theme about how the system works, whether it is overly bureaucratic, and whether the tools that are being used actually provide a true and accurate assessment. If you are using a faulty assessment tool and you get a decision that you as a patient inside the scheme are not happy with, then—once we lock out their ability to appeal to a higher body and their ability to seek financial assistance so that they can get another opinion and if necessary have a legal opinion to be able to carry that forward—what you are doing is simply protecting the lifetime care and support commission and the decisions they make rather than looking after the needs of the patient.
I admit that we will, no doubt, under the guidelines issued by the minister, have the best expert panels that we can. But that does not mean that there will never be a dispute. Various doctors have different views on the way patients should be treated. There will be emerging procedures and emerging treatments all the time for these injuries, particularly with all the work currently being done on the brain and spinal injuries. I think it is reasonable that people should have the opportunity to take the clinician to an independent dispute resolution process—as I read previously from recommendation 5, to have the opportunity for “a more robust and independent dispute resolution process for disputes concerning eligibility and treatment”. This goes to the heart of it: eligibility and treatment. What we are doing is locking people
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