No-fault Scheme Research Articles

The Importance of Legal Accountability in Negligence and Mental Health Care

Legal accountability in mental health care is increasingly gaining recognition in human rights discourse. Negligence is one accountability mechanism that can provide compensation, but has been criticised for failing to deliver justice. The Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022 (Vic), along with immunity provisions for clinicians who act in good faith, have shone the spotlight on whether current mechanisms are effective accountability measures. Analysis of authorities suggests that clinicians and health authorities will ordinarily be protected from liability when clinical decisions are made that are consistent with mental health legislation. Yet clinicians often misunderstand the concept of ‘duty of care’ and use it as an extra-legal power to control. Using a fictional vignette, this article addresses the tensions and dilemmas that exist in tort law and mental health care. Our analysis lends itself to two solutions: the need for effective training and the promise of no-fault insurance schemes.

Did implementation of no-fault auto-insurance in British Columbia, Canada, impact return to work following road trauma? Protocol for a before–after survival analysis

IntroductionRoad trauma (RT) is a major public health problem that often results in prolonged absenteeism from work. Limited evidence suggests that recovery after RT is associated with automobile insurance compensation...

Prevalence and predictors of post-traumatic stress symptoms in 2200 hospitalised and non-hospitalised injured New Zealanders.

Post-traumatic stress disorder following injuries unrelated to mass casualty events has received little research attention in New Zealand. Internationally, most studies investigating predictors of post-injury post-traumatic stress disorder focus on hospitalised patients although most survivors are not hospitalised. We compared the prevalence and predictors of symptoms suggestive of post-traumatic stress disorder 12 months following injury among hospitalised and non-hospitalised entitlement claimants in New Zealand's Accident Compensation Corporation. This government-funded universal no-fault insurance scheme replaced tort-based compensation for injuries in 1974 since when civil litigation (which can bias post-traumatic stress disorder estimates) has been rare. A total of 2220 Accident Compensation Corporation claimants aged 18-64 years recruited to the Prospective Outcomes of Injury Study were interviewed at 12 months post-injury to identify symptoms suggestive of post-traumatic stress disorder using the Impact of Events Scale. Multivariable models examined the extent to which baseline sociodemographic, injury, health status and service interaction factors predicted the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms among hospitalised and non-hospitalised groups. Symptoms suggestive of post-traumatic stress disorder were reported by 17% of hospitalised and 12% of non-hospitalised participants. Perceived threat to life at the time of the injury doubled this risk among hospitalised (adjusted relative risk: 2.0; 95% confidence interval: 1.2-3.2) and non-hospitalised (relative risk: 1.8; 95% confidence interval: 1.2-2.8) participants. Among hospitalised participants, other predictors included female gender, Pacific and 'other' minority ethnic groups, pre-injury depressive symptoms, financial insecurity and perceived inadequacies in healthcare interactions, specifically information and time to discuss problems. Among non-hospitalised survivors, predictors included smoking, hazardous drinking, assault and poor expectations of recovery. One in six hospitalised and one in eight non-hospitalised people reported post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms 12 months following injury. Perceived threat to life was a strong predictor of this risk in both groups. Identifying early predictors of post-traumatic stress disorder, regardless of whether the injury required hospitalisation, could help target tailored interventions that can reduce longer-term psychosocial morbidity.

Injecting Fairness into COVID-19 Vaccine Injury Compensation: No-Fault Solutions

Abstract The devastating impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic has fast-tracked the development of vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with global vaccination efforts already underway. While the introduction of large-scale or even mandatory vaccination will facilitate resumed social interaction, work and travel, such action is not without risks. Vaccination exposes recipients to the risk of rare but serious effects, leading to pertinent questions about liability and compensation for harm caused by vaccination. There have already been rare blood clotting reactions associated with two COVID-19 vaccines, some of which have been fatal. Traditional means of accessing compensation, such as liability-based litigation, product liability regimes and existing statutory schemes may be inadequate avenues of accessing compensation for individuals who sustain vaccine-related harm. Despite a significant number of countries worldwide introducing vaccine injury compensation schemes, many European countries and Australia have been hesitant to develop a no-fault scheme to respond to potential vaccine-related injuries. This article critically analyses whether existing compensation mechanisms, including liability-based tort claims, operating in common law and civil jurisdictions, are adequate avenues of accessing compensation by injured individuals. Australia and Europe are compared because of the close similarities in their existing liability-exemption approach to vaccine injury compensation, rather than no-fault. This stands in stark contrast to the use of no-fault schemes in other major jurisdictions, and the COVAX vaccine injury compensation scheme available in 92 low- and medium-income countries. The authors conclude that the introduction of a no-fault vaccine injury compensation scheme is a desirable mechanism to compensate vaccine-related injuries, by offering a more efficient and easily accessible method of accessing compensation when compared with liability-based causes of action. With the commencement of vaccination, urgent introduction of no-fault vaccination injury compensation schemes ought to be at the forefront of lawmakers’ reform agenda.

In support of "no-fault" civil liability rules for artificial intelligence.

Civil liability is traditionally understood as indirect market regulation, since the risk of incurring liability for damages gives incentives to invest in safety. Such an approach, however, is inappropriate in the markets of artificial intelligence devices. In fact, according to the current paradigm of civil liability, compensation is allowed only to the extent that “someone” is identified as a debtor. However, in many cases it would not be useful to impose the obligation to pay such compensation to producers and programmers: the algorithms, in fact, can “behave” far independently from the instructions initially provided by programmers so that they can err despite no flaw in design or implementation. Therefore, application of “traditional” civil liability to AI may represent a disincentive to new technologies based on artificial intelligence. This is why I think artificial intelligence requires that the law evolves, on this matter, from an issue of civil liability into one of financial management of losses. No-fault redress schemes could be an interesting and worthy regulatory strategy in order to enable this evolution. Of course, such schemes should apply only in cases where there is no evidence that producers and programmers have acted under conditions of negligence, imprudence or unskillfulness and their activity is adequately compliant with scientifically validated standards.

Health and return to work in the first two years following road traffic injury: a comparison of outcomes between compensation claimants in Victoria and New South Wales, Australia

BackgroundPeople who sustain road traffic injuries often have poor health outcomes. While outcomes are often worse in people with a compensation claim, especially in fault-based schemes versus no-fault schemes, few studies have directly compared outcomes across scheme types. ObjectiveTo compare health and work outcomes between people who had no compensation claim, a fault-based claim, or “no-fault” transport or workers compensation claim after hospitalisation for a road traffic injury. MethodsParticipants aged >=18 years admitted to hospital in New South Wales or Victoria for >24 hours were recruited in two separate prospective cohort studies (N=1,034). People who died or sustained minor or very severe injuries were excluded. Groups included Compulsory Third Party (fault-based, n=128), no-fault Transport Accident Commission (TAC; n=454) and workers compensation claimants (n=73), or no claim (n=226). Outcomes at six, 12- and 24-months post-injury included health [SF-12 Mental Component Score (MCS) and Physical Component Score (PCS)], and return to work for people working pre-injury. Multivariable mixed effects linear and logistic regressions, adjusting for demographic and injury covariates, examined differences in health and work outcomes between claimant groups, with fixed effects of time and random effects of participant ID. ResultsHealth status was better in people with a no-fault TAC claim (MCS: m=50.62, 95%CI:49.62,51.62; PCS: m=40.49, 95%CI:39.46,41.52) or no claim (MCS: m=49.99, 95%CI:49.62,51.62; PCS: m=44.36, 95%CI:43.00,45.72), than people with a workers compensation (MCS: m=45.73, 95%CI:43.46,48.00; PCS: m=38.94, 95%CI:36.59,41.30) or fault-based CTP claim (MCS: m=41.34, 95%CI:39.54,43.13; PCS: m=35.64, 95%CI:33.78,37.49). Relative to fault-based CTP claimants, the odds of returning to work were higher for people with no claim (AOR=6.84, 95%CI:1.73,27.05) but did not differ for no-fault TAC (AOR=1.21, 95%CI:0.36,4.05) or workers compensation claimants (AOR=0.83,95%CI: 0.17,3.99). While people with a fault-based CTP claim had poorer mental and physical health and return to work after injury, they showed greater improvements in mental health, and similar levels of improvement in physical health and work participation over time to the other groups. ConclusionThe patterns of health and work across scheme types provide important insights against which we can contrast the effects of future scheme designs on client outcomes.

Achieving Justice in Personal Injury Compensation: The Need to Address the Emotional Dimensions of Suffering a Wrong

Research shows that perceived injustice is an important predictor of worse health and rehabilitation outcomes after injury. Fault-based injury compensation schemes are considered to be generally more anti-therapeutic than no-fault schemes. This chapter starts from the submission that the fault or no-fault basis of schemes is not necessarily decisive for the level of adversarialism of claims handling procedure, and that a more detailed knowledge is required of the mechanisms that lie behind the negative correlation of adversarial-ism with recovery and health outcomes. It recounts some findings in empirical studies on reconciliation and the elements and effects of apologies, to extrapolate these to the process of the resolution of injury claims. The emotional and moral impact of suffering harm as a result of a committed wrong as identified in these studies, is compared to the properties of the process of the out of court resolution of injury claims. After it is concluded that these properties generally do not address this impact but instead often increase it, several options are identified to tackle these anti-therapeutic effects. These options involve several aspects of the process of the resolution of injury claims, such as taking responsibility by taking and keeping the initiative, providing recovery-focused services, promoting personal contact between the person responsible for the harm-causing event and the victim, promoting participation of the victim in the resolution process, having assessments carried out by neutral third parties, and more in general promoting the experience of procedural justice.

Injury Risk in New Zealand Rugby Union: A Nationwide Study of Injury Insurance Claims from 2005 to 2017

ObjectivesThe Accident Compensation Corporation is a compulsory, 24-h, no-fault personal injury insurance scheme in New Zealand. The purpose of this large-scale retrospective cohort study was to use Accident Compensation Corporation records to provide information about rugby injury epidemiology in New Zealand, with a focus on describing differences in risk by age and gender.MethodsA total of 635,657 rugby injury claims were made to the Accident Compensation Corporation for players aged 5–40 years over the period 2005–2017. Information about player numbers and estimates of player exposure was obtained from New Zealand Rugby, the administrative organisation for rugby in New Zealand.ResultsOver three quarters of claims (76%) were for soft-tissue injuries, with 11% resulting from fractures or dislocations, 6.7% from lacerations, 3.1% from concussions and 2.0% from dental injuries. Body regions injured included shoulder (14%), knee (14%), wrist/hand (13%), neck/spine (13%), head/face (12%), leg (11%) and ankle (10%). The probability of a player making at least one injury claim in a season (expressed as a percentage) was calculated under the assumption that the incidence of claims follows a Poisson distribution. Players aged 5–6 years had a probability of making at least one claim per season of 1.0%, compared to 8.3% for players aged 7–12 years, 35% for age 13–17 years, 53% for age 18–20 years, 57% for age 21–30 years and 47% for age 31–40 years. The overall probability of making at least one claim per season across all age groups was 29%. The relative claim rate for adults (players aged 18 years and over) was 3.92 (90% confidence interval 3.90–3.94) times that of children. Ten percent of players were female, and they sustained 6% of the injuries. Overall, the relative claim rate for female players was 0.57 times that of male players (90% confidence interval 0.56–0.58). The relative claim rate of female to male players tended to increase with age. There were very few female players aged over 30 years; however, those who did play had higher claim rates than male players of the same age group (1.49; 90% confidence interval 1.45–1.53).ConclusionsInjuries resulting from rugby are distributed across the body, and most of the claims are for soft-tissue injuries. Rates of injury increase rapidly through the teenage years until the early 20 s; for male players they then decrease until the mid-30 s. For female players, the injury rate does not decrease as players move into their 30 s. Combining Accident Compensation Corporation injury claim data with national player registration data provides useful information about the risks faced by New Zealand’s community rugby players, and the insights derived are used in the development of rugby injury prevention programme content.

Community insurance versus compulsory insurance: competing paradigms of no-fault accident compensation in New Zealand

AbstractThis paper presents a history of New Zealand's accident compensation scheme as a struggle between two competing normative paradigms that justify the core reform of the replacement of civil actions for victims of personal injury with a comprehensive no-fault scheme. Under ‘community insurance’, the scheme represents the community taking moral and practical responsibility for members who are injured in accidents, while for ‘compulsory insurance’ the scheme is a specific form of compulsory accident insurance. Understanding the history of the scheme in this way helps explain both the persistence of the scheme and important changes made to it by different governments.

No-Fault Versus Strict Liability Compensation Systems in Medical Malpractice Law in Vietnam in Comparision with Belgium, France, and England

Abstract Medical malpractice is a form of professional negligence and such a negligence forms part of the law of tort. As an alternative to the tort or fault-based system in medical malpractice, a no-fault compensation system has been viewed as having the potential to overcome problems inherent in the tort system. This is through the provision of fair, speedy and adequate compensation for medically injured victims. A no-fault compensation system allows patients to be compensated without proof of provider’s fault or negligence. Similar to no-fault schemes, the strict liability system is not fault-based although it belongs to tort law. Successful claims are paid in a uniform manner using a fixed benefits schedule and include compensation for both economic and non-economic (pain and suffering losses) without the necessity of proving negligence through a tort claim. This study focuses on the comparison of no-fault compensation systems versus strict liability systems between Vietnam to Belgium, France, and England. The distinctions in Belgium, France, and England can be the lessons for the development of a no-fault compensation system as well as strict liability system in Vietnam.

Whither no-fault schemes in Australia: Have we closed the care and compensation gap?

No-fault compensation in New Zealand, the Woodhouse report and statutory reforms to civil liability motivated consideration of no-fault schemes in Australia. In 2011, the Productivity Commission recommended adoption of a National Injury Insurance Scheme. Since 2016, the NDIS has developed nationally, followed by variations of the NIIS for motor vehicle and workplace accidents. Compensation for injuries outside the NIIS (e.g. medical negligence), or general damages or economic loss must be recovered through compulsory third-party claims or common law. For those cases, an attractive compromise between the common law and no-fault compensation exists in Menyawi’s ‘public tort liability’.

Improving reconciliation following medical injury: a qualitative study of responses to patient safety incidents in New Zealand

BackgroundDespite the investment in exploring patient-centred alternatives to medical malpractice in New Zealand (NZ), the UK and the USA, patients' experiences with these processes are not well understood. We sought...

Justice, Janus-like: The future of Australian personal injury compensation

‘Justice, Janus-like’ is a comparative assessment of the ability of the negligence system and the pure no-fault system to provide ethical, fair and adequate compensation to victims of personal accident in Australia. This paper arose from a concern that neither of these schemes fully satisfies the needs of victims and society. The comparative assessment focuses on three key goals of personal injury compensation schemes: adequate and quick compensation, deterrence potential, and the ability to achieve social justice. By evaluating the tort of negligence and a pure no-fault compensation scheme against these criteria, this essay found each system is fundamentally flawed. As such, this paper proposes that the fairest, most effective and socially useful mechanism to compensate victims of personal injury is through the implementation of a hybrid system: the tort of public liability. This alternative is capable of achieving all the key goals of personal injury compensation, while at the same time avoiding the challenges faced by both the negligence and no-fault systems. Australia is quickly moving into the future of personal injury compensation, with more jurisdictions considering the implementation of full no-fault schemes. This paper demonstrates that this approach is imperfect and, as such, an alternative scheme, such as the public liability tort, must be considered. As we move into the future, we must seriously consider the shortcomings of our current legal system, and find a way of compensating victims that achieves all three aims of compensation: deterrence, ethical justice and fair compensation.

Chronic Pain Following Motor Vehicle Collision: A Systematic Review of Outcomes Associated With Seeking or Receiving Compensation.

Motor vehicle collisions (MVC) are a major cause of injury, which frequently lead to chronic pain and prolonged disability. Several studies have found that seeking or receiving financial compensation following MVC leads to poorer recovery and worse pain. We evaluated the evidence for the relationship between compensation and chronic pain following MVC within a biopsychosocial framework. A comprehensive search of 5 computerized databases was conducted. Methodological quality was evaluated independently by 2 researchers according to formal criteria, and discrepancies were resolved with a third reviewer. We identified 5619 studies, from which 230 full-text articles were retrieved and 27 studies were retained for appraisal. A third of studies (37%) were of low quality, and 44% did not measure or control for factors such as injury severity or preinjury pain and disability. Most studies (70%) reported adverse outcomes, including all of the highest quality studies. Engagement with compensation systems was related to more prevalent self-reported chronic pain, mental health disorders, and reduced return to work. Recovery was poorer when fault was attributed to another, or when a lawyer was involved. Five studies compared Tort "common law" and No-Fault schemes directly and concluded that Tort claimants had poorer recovery. Although causal relationships cannot be assumed, the findings imply that aspects of loss, injustice, and secondary mental health outcomes lead to chronic pain following MVC. Further robust prospective research is required to understand the complex relationship between compensation systems and pain following road trauma, particularly the role of secondary mental health outcomes.

Is It Time to Adopt a No-Fault Scheme to Compensate Injured Patients?

The tort system is roundly indicted for its inadequacies in providing compensation in response to injury. More egregious is its response to injuries incurred due to negligence in the provision of healthcare services specifically. Despite numerous calls for reform, tort-based compensation has persisted as the norm to date. However, recent developments regarding physician malpractice lead to consideration of the possibility of a move to “no-fault” compensation for healthcare-related injuries. In this paper, I explore these developments, examine programs in various foreign jurisdictions which have adopted no-fault compensation for medical injury, and discuss the wisdom and feasibility of adopting an administratively-based compensation system for healthcare-related injury in Canada.A number of jurisdictions around the world have created administrative bodies whose role is to assess and allocate appropriate compensation in response to healthcare-related injuries. The primary motivation has been either to accomplish greater justice or to deal with burgeoning costs of the medical malpractice system (often accompanied by threatened collapse of the major insurer). The administrative scheme adopted may replace tort completely vis-a-vis claims within its purview, or it may permit the claimant to select either to pursue the administrative route or to launch a civil lawsuit. The scheme may be comprehensive, i.e., attempting to cover all healthcare-related injury, or may be limited to a particular type or extent of injury. For example, three jurisdictions have adopted programs exclusively focused on serious neurological injury surrounding birth trauma.Under these administrative schemes, an injured claimant must establish that the claimant fits within the program criteria, and therefore is entitled to compensation. The claimant is aided in the process by program administrative staff, and often by the complainant’s health care provider. Thus, the adversarial relationship between plaintiff and defendant is replaced by a system wherein the care provider may provide assistance to the injured person in seeking compensation.Numerous prominent individuals have argued in favour of reform of the Canadian tort-based medical malpractice, but governments have not been highly motivated to take action. However, the Canadian Medical Protective Association has recently sharply hiked the premiums paid for the defence of physicians and residents, in some cases an increase of close to 100 percent from 2014-15 to 2015-16. The lion’s share of these premiums is funded by provincial governments, whose budgets are straining as a result. The question to be addressed in this paper is: Are events now such that governments will indeed be motivated to take on reform, perhaps radical reform? These recent price increases, combined with an enhanced focus on patient safety, may provide the stimulus for revision of our system’s response to healthcare-related injury.

The problems and suggestions of possible improvement of the current car insurance in Korea : Focusing on the compensation of personal injury

Korean auto insurance industry has experienced serious difficulties due to market saturation, high loss rate and price regulations by authority. There have been various efforts to overcome the current difficult situation through the improvement and reform of automobile insurance system in Korea. In this context I have a very keen interest in Accident Compensation Act of New Zealand. New Zealand has an unique compensation scheme, so called ‘No-fault scheme’, for the injured people by accident including motor accident. 40 years ago, the New Zealand legislated ‘Accident Compensation Act’ by operated ACC for accomplishment the responsibility of society for the injured. In this paper, I will analysis the current situation and problems of Korean car insurance and examine NZ’s ACC. Thereby, I want to have useful implications for the reform of Korean automobile insurance system. This article will focus on compensating personal injury caused by car accident. Korean car insurance has several problems related in personal injury compensation. There are: Insufficient compensation for the victims, Inadequate compensation for the insureds, Increasing in lawsuits against insurers and Expensive medical fees. There are two ways in approaching the reform of the current Korean compensation scheme for physical injuries. Firstly, maintaining the framework of the tort law compensation system and the liability insurance in order to strengthen the social security through social welfare and social insurance. On the other hand, the compensation for a physical injury issues to be handled only by the social insurance process. The compensation system that acclimatized to the principle of liability with fault may be difficult to change it to the no-fault system straight away in the first place. However, it is important to take a step by step. Looking from the long term perspective, those steps will later shift from the fault based compensation system to the no-fault based compensation system; make worker’s compensation scheme and the accident compensation scheme unified; and finally it will become one entity system like New Zealand where all accident injuries covered under the ACC which are governed by the Accident Compensation Act. New Zealand's universal injury compensation scheme might resolve the problems of overlapped compensations by social insurance and private insurance and of different charges for medical treatments. And also it provides prompt compensations for injured persons and operates efficiently because all the processes take place in the one entity. In these respects this study on the New Zealand's accident compensation scheme will contribute to social cost reduction of the operation of auto insurance system in Korea.

RECONSIDERING THE LEGAL POSITION OF VICTIMS OF VIOLENT CRIME: DN V MEC FOR HEALTH 2014 (3) SA 49 (FB); MEC FOR HEALTH V DN 2015 (1) SA 182 (SCA)

In Parts 1–4 of this article, the facts, legal question and judgments delivered in DN v MEC for Health 2014 (3) SA 49 (FB) and MEC for Health v DN 2015 (1) SA 182 (SCA) is briefly described. Part 5 of this article provides a critical evaluation of some of the aspects of the judgment by the Supreme Court of Appeal, and focuses on the role which the court assigns to motive and risk in establishing whether the injury sustained by the plaintiff was an “accident” arising “out of and in the course and scope of employment”. Furthermore, a brief comparative overview is provided of the legal position of victims of violent crime in New Zealand (as an example of a jurisdiction that offers compensation to crime victims by means of a general social-security system) and England (as an example of a jurisdiction that offers compensatory relief via a tailor-made no-fault based-compensation scheme for crime victims).

Experiences of pathways, outcomes and choice after severe traumatic brain injury under no-fault versus fault-based motor accident insurance

Primary objective: To explore experiences of pathways, outcomes and choice after motor vehicle accident (MVA) acquired severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI) under fault-based vs no-fault motor accident insurance (MAI).Methods: In-depth qualitative interviews with 10 adults with sTBI and 17 family members examined experiences of pathways, outcomes and choice and how these were shaped by both compensable status and interactions with service providers and service funders under a no-fault and a fault-based MAI scheme. Participants were sampled to provide variation in compensable status, injury severity, time post-injury and metropolitan vs regional residency. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed to identify dominant themes under each scheme.Results: Dominant themes emerging under the no-fault scheme included: (a) rehabilitation-focused pathways; (b) a sense of security; and (c) bounded choices. Dominant themes under the fault-based scheme included: (a) resource-rationed pathways; (b) pressured lives; and (c) unknown choices. Participants under the no-fault scheme experienced superior access to specialist rehabilitation services, greater surety of support and more choice over how rehabilitation and life-time care needs were met.Conclusions: This study provides valuable insights into individual experiences under fault-based vs no-fault MAI. Implications for an injury insurance scheme design to optimize pathways, outcomes and choice after sTBI are discussed.

The impact of no-fault compensation on health care expenditures: An empirical study of OECD countries

Around the world, governments are faced with spiralling health care expenditures. This raises the need for further insight in the determinants of these expenditures. Existing literature focuses primarily on income, ageing, health care financing and supply variables. This paper includes medical malpractice system characteristics as determinants of health spending in OECD countries. Estimates from our regression models suggest that no-fault schemes for medical injuries with decoupling of deterrence and compensation reduce health expenditures per capita by 0.11%. Furthermore, countries that introduced a no-fault system without decoupling of deterrence and compensation are found to have higher (+0.06%) health care spending.

L11 Meeting the needs of the HD Community - A Collaborative Approach between the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and Huntingtons Victoria (HV)

<h3></h3> Heightened community expectations and individual choice has increased the emphasis on maintaining and supporting a person’s participation and independence within their own community. The Australian policy and economic context is reflective of this community viewpoint resulting in the development and implementation of reforms such as the NDIS. The NDIS at the point of introduction was being publicised as the most significant reform since the introduction of Medicare. So what is it? The NDIS is a national no-fault insurance scheme that provides support through a package of care for people with a disability regardless of where they are located in Australia.. The NDIS commenced in pilot stage on July 2013 in Tasmania for young people aged 15–24, in South Australia for children aged 0–14, and in the Barwon area of Victoria and the Hunter area in NSW for people up to age 65. The scheme is due to be launched from the 1st of July 2014 in the ACT, Northern Territory, and Western Australia and from 2016 in Queensland. In its role as an advocacy and service delivery body Huntington’s Victoria has responded to this exciting time of reformation by working in partnership with NDIS and its agency in order to continue to meet the needs of the HD community. Key features of this collaborative working relationship are: A commitment to a self-directed approach inclusive of the person and/or family in the care planning and implementation process. Promoting the person’s right to active citizenship. Protecting and promoting human rights of the HD community. Optimising opportunities to promote social inclusion. A coordinated flexible response to meeting a person’s needs based on needs identified through shared effective planning process. Mutual information provision between agencies in relation to HD, the needs of the community and the role of NDIS with associated implications nation wide.