After four years and almost 10,000 people sharing their experiences, the Disability Royal Commission (DRC) has released the final report.
It is a vast body of work comprising 12 volumes, 6,845 pages and 222 recommendations. We have included a very brief summary today; however, given the breadth of information and the seriousness of this report, we are taking some time to review in detail and discuss the recommendations with our interest groups and disability steering committee members, as well as our sector working groups and peers, before commenting further.
A very brief summary
The DRC recommendations include embedding human rights related to disability in all relevant legislation, including introducing an Australian Disability Rights Act, a National Disability Commission, and establishing a dedicated First Nations Unit in the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission. The recommendations also include significant reforms to dismantle barriers to inclusive education, open employment, and accessible, appropriate, safe housing.
The report provides the following guidelines for health services to be implemented:
- The right to equitable access to health services.
- Expand the scope of health workforce capability development to include all forms of cognitive disability at all stages of education and training.
- Immediately expand the scope of the work on an intellectual disability health capability framework and associated resources to address all forms of cognitive disability, to apply at all stages of education and training. This expansion should include autism-specific content and address specific healthcare issues for people with learning disabilities, dementia, and acquired brain injury.
- Allocate additional funding to support the expanded scope of health workforce capability development.
For clinical placements, the recommendations include:
- Increased opportunities for student learning and development in cognitive disability health, including as part of interprofessional teams, with education providers and clinical placement providers.
- Enhance funded supervised clinical and work-based training placements to train students in providing quality health care to people with cognitive disability.
- The Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care should reprioritise the National Roadmap for Improving the Health of People with Intellectual Disability action to embed training and CPD within 1-3 years.
The recommendations to State and Territory Governments included:
- Ensure there are specialist roles and multi-disciplinary teams embedded in local health service delivery.
- Statewide specialised services that can be accessed by people with cognitive disabilities and health professionals regardless of their location.
- Participation in a national network of specialised disability health and mental health services.
- Evaluation of the impact of the services and publication of evaluation findings.
- The Australian Government and state and territory government departments and agencies should be required to set a target to ensure that a proportion of new public service hires to their respective workforce are people with disability.
- The target should be at least 7% by 2025 and 9% by 2030.
Regarding provider registration, the recommendations include conducting a comprehensive review of the process focused on the following:
- Simplifying the process for smaller providers seeking to renew their registration.
- Improving the NDIS Commission’s operating system portal and online application forms.
- Removing any duplication of requirements for cohorts of practitioners or organisations working within multiple schemes and for recognising other forms of accreditation.
In the coming weeks, we will provide further information, particularly the response and commitments for State and Federal Governments and the implications for psychologists and their clients.