Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister for ACC: What protocols and procedures, if any, are in place within ACC for children who have been sexually abused?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for ACC) : The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) has protocols and procedures in place to refer cases to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. It has a dedicated child specialist in the Sensitive Claims Unit, and the corporation endeavours to ensure that it has access to expert clinicians with the required specialist skills to deal with those who have suffered from child sex abuse.
Hon Annette King: Is he aware that since July 2009 his instructions to ACC have led to well over 420 sexual abuse cases being held up—an increase of over 500 percent—as ACC waits for the new assessment tool to come into effect, and that 24 counsellors in his own electorate say they will stop doing accident compensation counselling because the changes will actually harm their clients; and how many counsellors around New Zealand will be available to do accident compensation work?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: There are many questions within the member’s supplementary question. I will answer just a couple of those. Firstly, I have given absolutely no instructions to ACC, except to say that this is a very sensitive area in which I have no expectations of savings, and that decisions need to be made based on what is in people’s best clinical interests. Secondly, I met with 18 of those counsellors in my own area at the weekend, and had a very constructive meeting with them.
Hon Annette King: If he believes politicians should listen to clinicians when it comes to assessment of sexual abuse claims for accident compensation, as he states, why does he not take his own advice and listen to the New Zealand Psychological Society and the New Zealand Association of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists who have written to him saying that ACC has misinterpreted the Massey guidelines to justify reduced treatment, and the new assessment tool is clinically unsound and not best clinical practice?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The first point I make is that the law in this area was passed in 2001 by the members opposite, and that it makes it absolutely plain that for people to be eligible for accident compensation they need to have suffered a mental injury. The second point I will make is that the decisions made by ACC have been led by a group of very skilled clinicians, including psychiatrists and psychologists, and, in my view, the group is making decisions that are in the best interests of those who have suffered abuse.
Hon Annette King: When he said last week there had been no change to clinical guidelines to date for the counselling of people who had been sexually abused, why did he not tell the public that the new assessment tool, which starts being used next week, is the reason many cases have been deferred and declined, including the case of the two little boys in Taranaki who were injured and sexually abused, and had their counselling stopped by ACC; and can he not see that the veracity of his statements is causing concern and confusion to very vulnerable people?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH: In respect of the individual case that the member has raised, the decisions in that case were made by a clinical psychologist. I, as Minister, will not override decisions made by clinicians. As I pointed out earlier in the week, as a consequence of representations from the MP for New Plymouth, counselling is being provided for that child, quite appropriately, through Child, Youth and Family.
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/0/2/0/49HansD_20091021_00000540-Questions-for-Oral-Answer-Questions-to-Ministers.htm
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