The NDIA finally confirmed that NDIS participants could indeed purchase a smart device, tablet or iPad to keep up their support during this lockdown period. A device to keep important things therapy or personal support going while everyone cannot meet face to face.

And because we have all been waiting for this announcement for a few weeks, it got a LOT of attention. All good because these days we all need a bit of good news amongst the gloom.

But there was another important announcement which, while nowhere near as sexy, was worthy of attention.

After almost seven years, the NDIS Access Request Form is finally available on the NDIS website.

Tah Dah!

This might not seem like a big deal but it is. Up until now if you wanted to apply for the NDIS you had to ring up and ask for an Access Request Form (or ARF in NDIS land). Not so great if for any reason you can’t make the call yourself (you weren’t supposed to ask anyone to make the call for you).

And you only had 28 days to lodge the form once you made the call. And you had to fill it in and get all your evidence together in that short time (you could ask for an extension if you needed it. But if you forgot you had to start the clock again).

Now you can download the Access Request Form and know what questions you are going to be asked, and what kind of evidence you might need. All before any clock starts ticking.

This is super helpful and we are really pleased it has finally become a reality.

Plenty of people have been asking for this for absolutely aaaggeeesss so it was really great to hit that button and finally see it download.

Putting the form online was also one of the recommendations from the Tune review into the NDIS. The Tune review was conducted at the end of last year and the final report released at the end of January.

This simple change will make it easier to apply for the NDIS. And is yet another step on the road to making the NDIS more transparent and fair.

We hope this will help the final 100,000 or so participants who are still to yet to enter the NDIS – and all the future participants in the years to come.

Some useful links

News item on the NDIS website – Access Request form now available to download

You can download both the Access Request Form and the Supporting Evidence Form from the Access Request page on the NDIS website.

And if you want to read more about Mr Tune and his review you can find our summary here on the EAC website.