The Ministry of Health brings a group of people (consumers) together every 6 months to feed back to the Ministry. These people represent disability organizations that have a national membership.
Harvey Brunt and Todd Fernie represent the Cerebral Palsy Society and its members on this consortium
The latest meeting was held near the airport in Auckland on the 30-31st July. Alison Hearn is the coordinator for the MoH and Anne Wilkinson for the consortium members.

The first day covered the work being done on the setting up of Autism Spectrum Disorder Guideline Implementation. Significant work has been occured on this subject and dissemination of the work should occur in the next few months.

Just released is the booklet “Community Residential Support Services –What you need to know”, if you want a copy email me at harvey@cpsociety.org.nz

Two people, Jonny Wilkinson (Tiaho Trust) and Jenny Moor (MoH) were tasked with visiting Western Australia to assess their Local Area Coordination (LAC) processes (that was referred to in the “Inquiry into Quality of Care and Services Provision for Disabled People). Unfortunately neither was available to address the consortium. However, meetings in the major centers are looking to be organized for them to feed back to people on their findings. Their results go before the Minister in November.

For NASC activities, the point was raised about where people receiving services have to go to hospital. Once in hospital the local DHB has to take over. However the point was made that hospitals do not understand the disabled or know their special requirements. The need to have their usual carers with them in hospital was stressed and noted by the Ministry.

The day ended with a touching farewell for Anne Bell who was the previous MoH coordinator for the consortium since its inception four years ago.
Thank you Anne for your dedication to the consortium and commitment to people with disabilities.

Harvey Brunt-GM

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