National Disability Insurance Scheme 

Funding is essential to the wellbeing of disabled people, as it provides the necessary resources for accessible healthcare, support services, and inclusive opportunities that enable them to live well.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in Australia provides funding for support and services to disabled people. This includes funding for therapies, assistive technologies, and personal care. My meetings with researchers at Sydney University gave an insight into the importance of ensuring that any system, programme or policy is properly executed. The intention of the NDIS had been to offer autonomy and choice to disabled people in respect of funding for support and services such as therapy and personal care. However, the researchers pointed out that in reality the scheme had fallen short in many areas. The rigidity of the system, funding issues, complexity and inconsistencies of the system and failure to take into account community or location issues excluded many disabled people, having detrimental impact on their wellbeing, which was not the intention of the scheme at all.

Reflecting on what I observed and from the people I spoke with, the principles of the NDIS - to offer choice and autonomy - are the gold standard, but implementation is another thing entirely. The resources need to be in place in order to implement the policies, processes and the intentions.

With regards to the UK, I think there is much that we can learn from this. Whilst the UK might have introduced policies which emphasise choice, control and empathy, this doesn’t translate to what disabled people are actually experiencing, similar to the NDIS. How the local services are commissioned varies enormously here in the UK, which means disabled people have hugely variable experiences in accessing the support and services they need. The voices of people with disabilities have been eroded over time in many aspects of life and there is need for collaboration across communities.