Homecare Single Point of Access Demonstration Project (Hunter)

Executive, 26 May 2008

Report adopted

The Single Point of Access Project (SPA) is being developed to open up one point of connection to various services, including Non-Government Organisations, and various Government Departments.

DADHC and the PSA have had discussion relating to Home Care being connected to this project. In particular meetings and negotiations have been held with the intent of commencing a trial (or Demonstration) in the Hunter Region.

Our Risk Assessor members have raised their concerns regarding this process causing a serious deterioration in them making field assessments and therefore becoming deskilled.

The Association has also expressed concerns that IT and data transfer systems were inadequate for sending referrals from SPA to the Client Information system (CIS) raising stress and workload issues for members in the branches..

These issues were raised with the Department at various meetings including the Consultative meeting attended by the Department and the PSA. Agreement was reached that the Demonstration in Hunter would not commence until the Association was satisfied regarding IT issues and the resolution of issue of field assessments was reached.

The Association was contacted by DADHC on 21/5/08 advising that IT and data transfer issues have been resolved through testing, and that they were currently investigating the possibility of members involved continuing to carry out field assessments. DADHC requested agreement from the PSA that they work toward a commencement date of the Demonstration on 4/6/08 if the field assessment issue can be resolved by this date.

The Association responded stating that agreement may be reached following a successful technical demonstration with our delegate in attendance and a written guarantee that the Assessors will be able to carry out field assessments.