Carers & Stakeholders Respite Forums

September 2007 by Kevin Marron

Throughout 2006 Interchange Respite Care NSW held 13 Carers & Stakeholders Respite forums throughout NSW, five in metropolitan Sydney (Chatswood, Carlingford, Guildford, Fairfield and Sutherland) and eight in regional NSW (Lismore, Port Macquarie, Armidale, Forbes, Maitland, Merewether, Bathurst and Bega).

At these 2 hour forums we present information on who is Interchange Respite Care NSW, Government Funding Programs, an overview of current respite service models, and our concerns with funding programs. We then put 5 specific trigger questions to the audience to solicit their feedback and opinion on issues relating to their respite care needs. These being :

• is the availability of respite care increasing or diminishing for you
  
• how difficult or easy is it for you to access respite care
  
• what do you want out of respite care
  
• will your future respite care needs increase or diminish
  
• do your long term needs lie with respite care or supported accommodation.

The key reason we commenced these forums was triggered by a review of the Home & Community Care (HACC) program’s Respite Service type Guidelines. In this review, both the Commonwealth & State governments were adopting a position on the definition & delivery of respite support which we believe was restrictive & inflexible in meeting the support needs of clients.

For most of 2006 we have been advocating that the existing definition of respite care and how support can be provided to families /carers as set out in the Home & Community Care (HACC) guidelines, (both National & State) and respite tender service descriptions, is outdated and archaic.

We specifically refer to the following aspects as set out in the current Guidelines and the proposed NSW Guidelines being put forward as part of the current review of the HACC Respite Service Type, and Social Support Service Type:

1. That respite services can only be provided in or from the home of the client or in a host family home. Respite services are provided on a one-to-one, individual basis.
   
2. That overnight respite cannot be provided in a centre based or residential setting
   
3. the carer is identified as the client, and not the family unit, or carer & care recipient.

Over the past 12 months we have been trying to engage both the Commonwealth government and the NSW government to reform the Home & Community Care Guidelines for Respite Care to provide a more flexible and accessible support system. To support this position we have been hosting a series of Carers & Stakeholders Respite Forums to gather the opinions and feedback of carers, families, etc, as to how they want respite support delivered and what they hope to attain from service support.

After each individual forum, 10 page session notes were produced which were sent out to attendees, and forwarded onto the respective Commonwealth & State Ministers. From these 13 Forums we then developed a consolidated report and again sent this onto the respective Ministers. During the course of these public forums many issues were raised about the respite care service system & ideas suggested as to how to improve this service system. This paper summaries the issues and ideas raised and details the outstanding issues we as the industry peak body has with the respite care service system and our suggestions for improvement.

As of September 2007, we are again convening these forums in areas across NSW to add to the information collected last year and continue to try & simplify the respite landscape for families, carers, and care recipients.