A community health service based in the Latrobe Valley has secured a tender to partner with the National Disability Insurance Agency in the Central Highlands.
Latrobe Community Health Service will be the district’s local area coordinator, based predominantly in Ballarat, as the National Disability Insurance Scheme starts rolling out.
The role will see LCHS assist people living with a disability and their carers to develop a support plan around what services they require.
It will also involve ensuring sufficient services are available in the region, while informing the community of the needs of people with a disability.
“We’ve got a depth of experience in coordination of planning for people with disabilities,” LCHS chief executive Ben Leigh said.
“We’ve been doing that for many years for people living with disabilities and for people who are ageing; that’s a core strength of ours.
“We’ve also got experience working in a large rural area. That’s why we felt we were very well-placed to provide this service in the Central Highlands region.”
The NDIS will not roll out to inner Gippsland until 2017, nor to outer Gippsland until 2019, but Mr Leigh said the organisation would put its hand up in the event there were more LAC tenders.
He said LCHS would use its existing expertise, along with the care planning coordination experience of the LAC role, to contend as a Gippsland LAC provider.
“We feel we have a lot of skills and depth of experience we will be able to bring to Gippsland to be a very effective LAC partner,” Mr Leigh said.
The LAC partnership could mean as many as 35 new roles are required over the next three years in the Central Highlands region, with pre-phasing services to begin from July.
