Executive Officer’s Report
In line with the new National Health Reform Agreement (NHRA), NSW has agreed to a
split of responsibilities for aged care and disability programs, including the Home and
Community Care (HACC) Program, for consumers (carers) at age 65 (50 for Indigenous
Australians) from 1 July 2011. The Commonwealth will assume full funding and
operational responsibility for aged care services from 1 July 2012 and has committed to
not substantially altering service delivery mechanisms before 1 July 2015.
The State Government is also making significant changes to the way services and
funding will be provided for people with a disability and their family and carers in the
future in NSW.
Details of these changes are not final and will continue to be revealed over at least the
coming 12 months.
In July this year The Hon. Andrew Constance MP, Minister for Disability Services in NSW
hosted a summit – Living Life My Way – which explored the central theme of these
changes - a Person Centred Approach to disability services and supports in NSW.
The introduction of Personalised funding arrangements is intended to enable people with
a disability, their families and carers to exercise greater choice about the supports and
services they receive. This will inevitably have a significant impact for organisations like
Riverlink and services we provide.
In September this year I was able to secure a meeting between myself and a delegation
from Riverlink with Minister Constance and his staff. We met in his Macquarie street
office to tell him about the person centred approach to services that Riverlink already has
and how successful the evaluations and consumer feedback has been around these. I
also took the opportunity to tell Minister Constance in some detail about our very
successful Mind YourSelf © program for carers. He was very interested and suggested
we might arrange a visit by him to see one of our programs in action.
To read more please download the pdf file of the full annual report for 2011.
