Each year the Australian and state governments release a progress report showing how they have responded to the recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission (DRC). It’s important that we keep the government accountable on the commitments it made to improve the lives of people with intellectual disability.
This blog post is about the NSW Government’s progress on improving healthcare for people with intellectual disability,
The DRC said that people with intellectual disability need equal access to safe, quality healthcare. The DRC also said that governments need to address things that people with intellectual disability face in healthcare settings, like preventable deaths, diagnostic overshadowing, delays in treatment, and hospital discharge failures.
The DRC also endorsed the model of intellectual disability health teams (Recommendation 6.33). CID advocates strongly for these health teams. They are part of the Intellectual Disability Health Service in New South Wales and are currently in 7 out of the 15 Local Health Districts in the state.
In their response to the DRC, the NSW Government said “further enhancement of health services for people with intellectual disability and cognitive disability will be informed by service evaluations, consideration of best practice approaches in other jurisdictions and consultation with people with disability.”
CID commends the NSW Government for evaluating the intellectual disability health teams in 2025. The evaluation showed the teams are an important service, but they are small and not easy to access in regional and remote areas. You can read the report on intellectual disability health teams here (PDF).
In 2026, CID wants the NSW Government to:
- fund more intellectual disability health teams
- make unconscious bias training mandatory for all NSW Health staff
- embed supported decision making into all interactions with our community
Look out for CID’s blog posts about the rest of the 2025 progress report, which will be coming soon!
You can read the 2025 progress report from the Australian Federal and State governments here:
