COVID-19 leave payments 

The Federal Government has announced details of their Disability Worker COVID-19 Leave Grant, which reimburses providers for sick-leave payments to workers who have exhausted their leave. The grant application period opens on 11 August and closes on 30 January next year. 

The funding ensures income for permanently employed and casual disability workers who have exhausted their leave and need to isolate at home because of COVID-19. Workers who can work from home are not eligible.  

There are two payment options for rostered hours lost. Providers are expected to pay their workers for their time off and later claim the grant as reimbursement. The period they can claim for is 1 April to 31 December 2023.  

Eligibility  

To be eligible, you need to be an NDIS provider as defined in the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013, registered or not, including individual providers of disability support (sole traders), and providing any of the following classes of supports: 

• high intensity daily personal activities, involving the delivery of health-related supports 
• community nursing care 
• daily personal activities 
• assistance with Daily Life Tasks in a Group or Shared Living Arrangement. 

Grant details 

To be eligible, a disability worker must test positive for COVID-19 and not attend work. 

If the worker meets the eligibility requirements, they will need to complete and sign an Employee Disability Worker COVID-19 Leave Eligibility Declaration form for their employer to submit with the grant application. Eligibility and grant submission details can be reviewed in the guidelines on the Grant Connect webpage.

The NDIS provider must pay the worker at least the amount the provider will receive through the grant: 

• $450 per person where the worker has lost at least eight hours but less than 20 hours of work 
• $750 per person where the worker has lost more than 20 hours of work. 

In the claiming period, the provider applies for the grant, claiming reimbursement of the money they have paid each eligible worker.  

Disability providers and sole traders can submit one claim every three months for any payments made in the specified period. There are three claiming periods:

• Claims for 1 April to 30 June should be submitted from 11 August to 7 September.  
• Claims for 1 July to 30 September should be submitted from 3 October to 6 November. 
• Claims for 1 October to 31 December should be submitted from 18 December to 30 January 2024. 

COVID-19 and influenza updates  

Health Authorities have observed the recent COVID-19 wave appears to be reducing, but still recommend booster vaccinations. The uptake of the 2023 COVID-19 booster dose by people with disability remains extremely low.  

Disability providers and workers should be aware of the importance of 2023 COVID-19 booster vaccinations to their organisation and the health of participants. A person is eligible for a 2023 booster if it has been six months or more since their most recent COVID-19 booster or positive COVID-19 test. For the latest guidance for disability service providers on COVID-19 vaccines, see the Department of Health and Aged Care website.  

Disability providers can also contact their regional Primary Health Network to discuss the possibility of in-reach COVID-19 vaccinations.  

Influenza 

Seasonal influenza infections are on the rise in many states, with vaccination urged by health authorities for protection against serious illness and death, especially for older people, those with chronic health conditions, and people with disability. An influenza vaccination can be given at the same time as a COVID-19 vaccination. 

You can read more on the Department of Health and Aged Care’s influenza vaccine web page.  

The Queensland Government is supporting free influenza vaccinations for all Queenslanders aged six months and over. The program continues until 31 August. Queenslanders who paid for a vaccination between 22 July and 31 August can claim for reimbursement.  

To promote influenza vaccination with workers and people with disability, you can also use the Department of Health and Aged Care’s Getting Vaccinated against Influenza resource collection. 

Participate in an interview for important cervical screening research  

Providers are invited to take part in an important research project to raise the participation rate in cervical screening for women with disability, especially self-collection tests.  

The National Cervical Screening Program is a largely successful program, with over 70 per cent participation in 2021. Some women, however, experience barriers to screening. There are population groups within Australia who are under-screened and, therefore, at greater risk of developing cervical cancers. People with disability are one of those groups.   

Supporting Choice for Cervical Screening is gathering evidence about how to improve participation in cervical screening for these under-screened groups. In particular, they are looking at how the simpler self-collection test can be more widely used. They are gathering evidence about what is being done and what more could be done to create safe, accessible and acceptable screening models.  

The project would like to speak to workers in disability services about what access to cervical screening they provide to participants. Since this project is about barriers to screening, they wish to speak to service providers even if they do not provide access to cervical screening. 

If you participate, you can be interviewed either as an individual (up to an hour) or as part of a group with colleagues (up to 1.5 hours). The interview will be held online via Zoom or Teams. More information about the project is on the Supporting Choice for Cervical Screening website.  

To indicate your interest for an interview, go to the University of Melbourne’s survey page.  

Supporting Choice for Screening Cancer is a national project, run by the University of Melbourne, in partnership with the Australian Centre for Prevention of Cervical Cancer, Australian University, Kirby Institute and the Daffodil Centre, which is a collaboration between the University of New South Wales and Cancer Council. (University of Melbourne Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) reference: 2023-26114-38488-1) 

For enquiries, please contact project coordinator Dr Tessa Saunders This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or the Supporting Choice team: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

Article sourced from National Disability Services