ACC responds to Independent Review of services for sexual abuse sufferers

Last year’s changes to how ACC manages sexual abuse claims were designed to achieve two goals. They were to ensure we targeted our services to those people who were actually covered by our legislation and to improve the outcomes those people achieved. We still believe those are reasonable goals.

The changes were never about saving money. Year on year, our total expenditure in this area has hardly fallen and it is only a tiny part of ACC’s total expenditure.

However, it became clear that the changes we had introduced had excluded more people than we expected and, more importantly, there was little else available for them outside of ACC.

“ACC has already acknowledged this situation itself and had begun working with the sector to put in place whatever support we appropriately can. For example, we recently introduced up to 16 hours of support for people with a new sensitive claim, or who are awaiting an assessment”, said Denise Cosgrove, General Manager, Claims Management, ACC.

The report of the Independent Review Panel, released today by the Minister for ACC, raises a number of serious issues and ACC has already begun responding to them.

“ACC met with the Panel to discuss its findings. We agree that action is required in some areas, and believe the initiatives we have already put in place will go some way to addressing their concerns.”

“However, we continue to believe that, for those who are accepted by ACC, the current Pathway offers considerable advantages over the previous process. It ensures people get a proper assessment before treatment is undertaken, that there is a plan in place for that treatment and checks that progress is being made towards set objectives. This represents sound clinical practice.”

“Nonetheless, to ensure we make good decisions moving forward, we have begun regular meetings with the sexual abuse treatment sector, including clients, to make sure that they are involved and their voices are heard. The feedback we have received from them and the Independent Panel about our early work has been very positive”.

Ms Cosgrove said work was continuing on the development of separate processes for children and other groups such as Maori. A workforce development plan for counsellors, to ensure they provided a high-quality service, was also being developed.

“But I have to emphasise that not all of the answers sit with ACC. We are just one of a number of agencies with responsibilities in this area. The Government’s response to the Report of the Sexual Violence Taskforce will provide a ‘whole of government’ approach, which is a sensible way to ensure that the right solutions are put in place”.

ENDS

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