Our report Accident Compensation Corporation case management: Progress on recommendations made in 2014 was presented to the House of Representatives today.

In 2014, we looked at how well the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) used a case management approach to support claimants to recover and rehabilitate from serious injuries. We concluded that ACC needed to have a more “claimant-centred” approach, particularly for claimants with complex needs, and we made four recommendations.

ACC has made good progress in implementing three of the four recommendations we made in 2014. ACC case managers, and treatment and rehabilitation providers, can now more effectively get the information they need to plan and support the recovery of injured New Zealanders. ACC has a stronger focus on understanding claimants’ needs beyond injury treatment, through to effective recovery and rehabilitation.

Claimants with complex needs can now expect a more consistent service through a case management approach called Partnered Recovery. ACC is actively seeking feedback from these claimants to help it understand and address their support needs better. However, ACC needs to do more to prepare claimants for the move from its care to other public organisations. We expected to see a clear framework and processes that support a seamless and well co-ordinated transition. In our view, ACC has not made enough progress in improving its processes to prepare claimants for this transition.

In 2017, ACC began testing and refining a new case management approach called Next Generation Case Management. The new approach aims to put claimants’ needs at the centre of ACC’s case management services. Although ACC has been developing the Next Generation Case Management approach for some time, it has not fully embedded the approach yet. This means that it is too early to know with certainty whether it will fully realise its potential benefits. However, there are some positive signs. We strongly encourage ACC to fully and objectively evaluate the approach once it is embedded to provide assurance that it is achieving the benefits expected and represents value for money.

A one-page summary and epub for this report are also available.

Read our blog posts to find out more about the work of the Office. We also have Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram pages that you can follow.

© Scoop Media