NDIS and occupational therapy: compatible in intention and purpose from the consumer perspective.

People living with disability in Australia face additional challenges compared to other people within the community. These challenges include having poorer access to health services, lower levels of engagement in meaningful education and fewer employment opportunities (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010a). Consequently, Australians with disabilities are 2.5 times more likely to experience poverty than the general population. To address the extra challenges, a person with a disability has a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) was proposed by the Productivity Commission (2011). The NDIS involves a federally funded support scheme that will provide lifelong support and care for people with significant disabilities. This paper aims to: 1. Highlight the unequal health status of people living with disability and how social insurance system may address this inequity. 2. Explain how the NDIS, if implemented as proposed by the Productivity Commission (2011), could provide equitable access to services to all Australians living with disability. 3. Describe potential risks and limitations to the NDIS and how these could be minimised. 4. Use a case illustration to demonstrate that compensable insurance can lead to gaining tertiary qualifications and a career in occupational therapy. 5. Describe how the occupational therapy profession and NDIS are complementary and that the values, skills and attributes of occupational therapists match those of the scheme. I sustained a complete T1 spinal cord injury in a motor vehicle accident in 2004 but was fortunate enough to be compensable and therefore financially supported with injury-related expenses. The successful completion of my Bachelor of Occupational Therapy will be used to demonstrate what can be achieved when financial barriers are removed and individualised support provided to enable the achievement of client-centred goals. Becoming tertiary educated has provided the knowledge and skills related to health, which, when combined with my life experience, allows the provision of an informed consumer perspective to inform practice in occupational therapy.