Highly vulnerable residents of disability group homes are being placed at significant risk because independent monitors have not been given the power to inspect the increasing number of privately run facilities, Victoria’s public advocate has warned.
The national disability insurance scheme (NDIS) has driven an explosion in different forms of disability accommodation, including privately run group homes, which can sit outside the remit of state-based independent monitors checking for signs of abuse, neglect or assault.
In Victoria, the Office of the Public Advocate says that a number of accommodation providers also setting up properties outside the regulatory regimes.
Victoria’s public advocate, Dr Colleen Pearce, said that had left a significant regulatory gap and was leaving highly vulnerable residents without oversight and at significant risk of harm.
“With the explosion of new disability accommodation models, the ability of community visitors to be independent eyes and ears for all people with disability vulnerable to abuse is at risk,” Pearce told the Guardian.
“Some at-risk residents that have been known by community visitors for years, have moved into alternate supported accommodation that community visitors have no legislative right to attend.”
“Those residents have lost a key protective presence in their lives.”
Even where homes are within its remit, the OPA says its ability to inspect is compromised by under-resourcing and its inability to access details about properties.
The warning comes after revelations that more than 1.5m complaints were made about the NDIS in 2021-22, the majority of which related to unauthorised restrictive practices, including the use of sedatives or physical or environmental restraints. The complaints also include allegations of abuse and neglect.
In Victoria, the community visitor scheme is considered a vital protective measure against abuse and neglect, allowing unannounced visits to disability accommodation to check on resident welfare and housing conditions.
But the program was undermined by Covid, which restricted the number of in-person visits to disability accommodation.
Visitors switched to remote technology – phone and video – for almost half of all visits in the last six months of 2021, though the proportion of in-person inspections rose back to 80% in the first six months of 2022. In total, visitors conducted 1,131 in-person visits and 673 remote visits last financial year, down on pre-pandemic levels.
“The Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact on the work of community visitors who championed and implemented a remote safeguarding system throughout the peak outbreaks to prevent the spread of Covid to people at risk,” Pearce said.
Pearce warned the growing number of properties outside her organisation’s scope had caused “significant concerns for the living standards of people at increased risk of abuse and neglect”.
“This was evident during the Covid lockdowns where there were fewer people able to visit, and remote safeguarding was not always available,” she said.
“Community Visitors require adequate powers under the NDIA Act and sufficient funding to undertake their vital safeguarding role, for which they are renowned, of identifying the early warning signals of system failure.
“In a changing system, it is critical that the safeguarding role Community Visitors hold is recognised as part of the safeguarding regime for people with disability, including the protections they provide from abuse, neglect, and exploitation.”
