Access by Various artists

Will the same compassion be applied to the assessment processes, which for some take a very narrow view of eligibility?

The announcement said that NASC assessment processes will continue unchanged – more of the same nitpicking and rationing. I hope someone is monitoring how many people get the full 40 hour maximum.

The prospect of improvement as part of wider changes to support services is being dangled, but how many years away is that?

I think I was mistaken in thinking that this was a big change. It was only a tweak to let in a few more applicants.

My lack of a legal background shows in a couple of errors in this post. The Court of Appeal is not the highest court (that's the Supreme Court). The act to be repealed is part 4A of the 2013 NZ Public Health and Disability Amendment Act, which refers back to Part 4A of the 2000 NZ Public Health and Disability Act. Sorry about this.

Thanks for posting this Hilary. I guess I should have done an update here on PA last Sunday, but in all honesty, these days, quelling my frustration to the point of being able to write to the standard expected here is sometimes beyond me.

I see Kirsty Johnston has a paywalled article about the death by overdose in state care of a disabled person in 2011 that the Misery is choosing to hide. This death was one of '110 in care facilities that year...'

These two issues are inextricably linked.

The Miserly has updated its page and it seems that Funded Family Care is here to stay as a separate entity.

Yes they will allow payment of spouses and yes they will pay parents of under 18 year olds and yes the pay rate will increase according to "comparable pay scale, service and qualification levels ' .

But it looks very much like Funded Family Care is going to continue to exist as a method whereby family members can be paid to provide allocated supports.

Which, if it is not already blindingly obvious, still fucking treating family carers differently.

Just to clarify a bit more. The Government will (hopefully) repeal the whole of he 2013 NZ Public Health and Disability Amendment Act. The whole point of the Act was to amend and extend Part 4A of the 2000 Act. I should have made that clearer in the post.

Thanks for this Rosemary. Pity about the Herald paywall as I miss some of Kirsty's good work these days. She knows a lot about state care and disability as a result of her investigations over the last several years.

I am hopeful that the eventual select committee process looking at the repeal of the 2013 NZPH&D Act will be an opportunity for some real investigations about better ways.

quelling my frustration to the point of being able to write to the standard

heck, I even have trouble meeting the bar over there :)

Finally it has been recognised that the funding allocated for this is not going to be enough.
Some numpty didn't do their sums did they?

I would like to think that this will not be used as a (convenient) excuse to sideline this...but I am not even going to hope.

No wonder Julie Anne Genter has handed the whole disability thing over to Jenny Salesa.

Natrad engaged quite rightly with Brian Easton...

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/395170/new-families-joining-funded-family-care-scheme-may-miss-out-on-fair-pay

Economist Brian Easton said there were going to be some very disappointed people.

"The new people are going to get paid for far fewer hours than the existing people, perhaps about a quarter to a third number of hours that the existing people get," Dr Easton said.

"So it's an extension of the scheme but it doesn't cover all the needs of those people who have been excluded and particularly are concerned about full-time care."

There could be some families who already have some services from providers but some hours of payment for other times would be appreciated. I also hope that if it does prove popular that more funding is provided in future Budgets. The evaluation of Mana Whaikaha (the new NASC-less person-centred system in the MidCentral area which is proving very popular) is also due next year. I would hope that all these things are considered in a new focus on fairer and more consistent disability support in the next parliamentary term.

I would hope that

Now, I'm going to ask that we hop in our time machine and travel back to September 2013 and the Previous Incumbents' announcement of the brand spanking new Funded Family Care.

The Government has been working with people from the disability and carers’ community (blah, blah, usual blah) on key parts of implementing its $92 million policy of paying some family members to care for disabled people, Health Minister Tony Ryall says.

“It enables around 1,600 disabled adults who meet the high and very high needs eligibility criteria to pay resident family members to care for them at home for up to 40 hours a week – if that’s their choice. This policy does not apply to spouses or partners, or children under 18.”

“The Government will invest $92 million over the next four years to pay for this support package at an estimated cost of $23 million a year.

It turns out that for the first four years of Funded Family Care the total spend was $22.5 million. That is just shy of a quarter of the much publicised generous allocation of $92 million allocated in 2013.

Leaving $73.5 million of unused funds specifically earmarked for paying family carers ostensibly (according to the response I received today from DSS) returned to the Government coffers.

So, ok, Current Mob....you stuffed up with your premature announcement the other day by failing to check to see if the allocated funding was going to be sufficient to fulfill your promises....here's a bloody lifeline.

There's $73.5 million already allocated that you can surely draw upon to do this work properly. Taking the yearly funding from a mere $8million to a workable $26 million.

Allocations expire, sorry. Being that underspent shows the criteria were mis-designed. Some might even call it revenge..

Some might even call it revenge..

Cheap and dirty was how John Forman described it...

“In its announcement the Government makes much of the fact that it consulted with experts to craft this policy. The feedback we provided was ignored, and the result is the Funded Family Care payment is a dog’s breakfast. It’s not nice, it’s not right, and it won’t work,”

I know John was at the Grand Announcement do at Government House the other weekend...I wonder if he's caught up with the fact that they got their costings wrong?

Not that it would be fair to expect him to step up again and battle...he and the Carers Alliance were staunch throughout....unlike the secretariat of Carers NZ.

John is a good man.

Another update on this from the Misery of Health's website.

They have released this Cabinet Paper dated September 2018.

Also this 51 page tome dated around about when the announcement was made in July.

There's over eighty pages of discussion, and since both Peter and I struggle to read volumes on screen I began to print them out.

Big mistake. Will I ever bloody learn? Not quite as many solid blacked out redactions as the Previous Incumbents' effort that so riled readers here on Public Address back in 2013...but not far off.

Simply not acceptable.

Not.Fucking. Okay.

Open and transparent government my arse.