Residential Care Providers - summarised output across all four engagement sessions

The Independent Review into the Sustainability of Disability Support Services (DSS)(‘the Independent Review’) outlined seven recommendations to progress towards more stable, predictable, and consistent Disability Support Services (DSS).

Recommendation 2 froze residential care funding, maintaining 2023/24 funding levels for residential facility-based care for 2024/25 pending commissioning and completion of a detailed and urgent review of the contract and pricing models.

The DSS Taskforce is progressing the urgent review to provide advice to the Government.

DSS ran a series of engagement sessions between 13 and 15 November 2024.

These focused on exploring Recommendation 2 (Residential Contract and Pricing Models) of the Independent Review.

Each engagement session was focused on a particular provider group:

• Group 1: Medium Providers (7 organisations)
• Group 2: Large Providers (11 organisations)
• Group 3 Small Providers (8 organisations)
• Group 4: Aged Residential Care providers (6 organisations).

The overall purpose of these engagement sessions was to gain insights from providers and input into the initial advice to Cabinet, informing a more sustainable, consistent, fair and transparent model.

The purpose of these engagement sessions was to gain an understanding of residential care funding from a provider perspective.

1. Better understand the provider experience and perspectives
2. Outline and describe the main issues with the status quo
3. Prioritise short- term challenges to be addressed