The NDIS scheme is half-way through the full roll-out of projected services and supports. By the end of 2019, 245,000 participants will be a part of the NDIS. On 1 July 2019, all States, except Western Australia will join the scheme.

This means that the 17,000+ current providers face the challenge of being audited under the new Quality and Safeguarding Framework. They are registered now under a State based authority or the Quality and Safeguards Commission.

Auditors, the commission and state authorities are confused. No wonder service providers are having sleepless nights trying to navigate these new business rules.

From our experience there is a mismatch of up to 60% of policies between the old and new standards. The gap between what is currently considered acceptable and what is now required is substantial. 

You may wonder, how did these providers operate previously? Even though they have existing policies and processes, the 20 new pieces of legislation need to be met. They have fallen behind with their paper based documentation.

Our NDIS experts are telling us that approximately 30 existing policies need to be rewritten to meet the audit standards.

Let’s say that each policy takes:

• 3 hours to review against the new standards

• 3 hours to write new audit ready content and reference the standards

• .5 hours to update all the forms and registers

Just these 30 policies alone require 192 hours of effort to prepare. 

The situation for those that are offering high risk complex services is even more demanding. There are now 5 new registration groups with their own Modules and audit standards.

If you are dealing with children, offering behaviour supports, using restraints, working with high risk participants with complex needs or offering accommodation, then Modules 1-5 apply.

The analysis of our Centro BUSINESS customers existing policies showed that:

• 36% of Module 2

• 50% of Module 3

• 17% of Module 4

were out of date or had a gap. 

The stress of not knowing what to change with the new standards and the tight deadlines of an audit, are adding to disability support providers administrative burden.

Not sure where to start? Ask us to do a Gap Analysis and Expert Policy Check on your business.

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