Groundswell of support to add ADHD to NDIS

The ADHD community must work together to advocate for the condition to be added to the NDIS, says Angela Byron, non-executive director at ADHD Australia.

Last week, several news outlets reported that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was being considered for addition to the NDIS as a primary condition.

This was welcome news for the ADHD community, which has long advocated for its inclusion and more support for Australians with ADHD.

While it is disappointing that NDIS Minister, Bill Shorten, has now confirmed that the scheme will not be broadened to include ADHD within this budget cycle, ADHD Australia is pleased to see the widespread discussion it has generated.

We are also encouraged by the momentum that continues to build around ADHD awareness, as the latest figures show that ADHD can lead to disability for up to one in twenty Australians.

As a community, we must work together to advocate for its inclusion, and in the spirit and intention of the NDIS, achieve greater access to treatment and support for those who most critically need it.

When introducing the legislation to help fund the NDIS in 2013, an emotional Julia Gillard said that people with a disability would finally have “security and dignity” and that the NDIS was a major step toward providing peace of mind to people with a disability and would give them choice and control over the care and support they receive.

The purpose of the NDIS today is to provide funding to eligible people with disability to gain more time with family and friends, greater independence, access to new skills, jobs, or volunteering in their community and improved quality of life.

According to the NDIS’s eligibility checker, support through the scheme is only available to people who have a disability caused by a permanent impairment which may be intellectual, cognitive, neurological, sensory, physical or psychosocial.

ADHD is globally recognised as a lifelong neurological condition that can have a significant and detrimental effect on an individual’s participation in the education system, the workplace and society more broadly.

Despite this, support for Australians with ADHD is only available through the NDIS if an individual qualifies for the NDIS via a primary condition of autism and they meet the requirements set out in the NDIS Act.

The definition of disability as set out in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 includes a total or partial loss of the person’s bodily or mental functions, and a disorder, illness or disease that affects a person’s thought processes, perception of reality, emotions or judgment or that results in disturbed behaviour.

But as chair of ADHD Australia, Professor Michael Kohn says: “there are many Australians whose personal experience of ADHD would align with this definition of disability, and if the NDIS is to remain true to its intended purpose, ADHD’s inclusion within the NDIS is well overdue.”

While for many Australians, ADHD can be effectively managed through early intervention, accommodation in education and the workplace, psychological treatment and medication, we acknowledge that all diagnosis and treatment is not without cost to both the individual and the economy, we must not lose sight of the fact that some individuals have such severe ADHD that it impairs their ability to function and participate on a daily basis.