Page 3968 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 20 September 2017
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These support services, and a high level of visibility during the survey period, are important signals and indicators of the ACT government’s support during this difficult period.
Those who are saying that they are feeling stress because they are voting no are getting just a small insight into what it is like to be gay or lesbian in this country. (Time expired.)
Visitors
MADAM SPEAKER: I acknowledge the presence in the gallery of a delegation from Girl Guides. Welcome to your Assembly.
Questions without Notice
National disability insurance scheme—mental health services
MS LEE: My question is to the Minister for Mental Health. You advised in a response to estimates question on notice E17-559 that:
I have been advised that with the transition to NDIS some psychosocial services eg group programs have been discontinued as the NDIS model does not provide sufficient funding to maintain sustainability for the providers. This has reduced choice of program options for people with a mental illness.
Minister, which services for people with mental health problems have ended in the ACT with the transition to the NDIS?
MR RATTENBURY: Ms Lee has indentified an issue that is happening as part of the transition to the NDIS, which is where in the past people would have been able to attend services for free, for want of a better expression, the providers have found that people are not willing to pay for them on an individual visit basis, so this has challenged the service delivery model that existed prior to the NDIS. I will have to take on notice the question around which services have closed. The specific one I can think of is the Rainbow Room, a service I think members will be aware of. It closed earlier this year.
I do not want to get into semantics, but there is the question of whether services have closed because of the NDIS. Some service providers are reorienting what they have done in light of the NIDS model and are moving away from some of the group provision services and into individual service delivery to respond to the environment the NDIS has created. There are certainly some transition issues here and we are seeing changes.
One of the challenges when it comes to mental health is people simply accessing the NDIS. Because of the definition of the NDIS some people across the spectrum of mental health services are within the scope of the NDIS while others are not. So there is certainly a significant period of transition in the psychosocial disability space, and it is something I am very concerned about.
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