Factsheet – Supporting people with disability through COVID-19

Understanding Queensland Public Health Directions

The Queensland Government have released a factsheet which provides guidance on how the current COVID-19 Queensland Public Health Directions (PHD) apply to people with disability, organisations, workers and volunteers providing support services to people with disability in Queensland.

People with disability and their families have been calling for clarity around the COVID-19 Public Health Directions and how they relate to people with disability receiving supports, particularly around people in shared housing.  It’s also important people with disability know what information is being made available to the workers who support them.

This fact sheet provides guidance to disability service providers (including NDIS registered providers) and their employees; and carers and volunteers providing support to people with disability during COVID-19.  You can find the full Queensland Government Factsheet on Supporting people with disability through COVID-19 – Understanding Queensland Public Health Directions here.

Guidelines around some of the key areas of confusion are highlighted below.

The factsheet confirms that for people with disability that:

• disability support services are essential services. This means that your workers and volunteers can visit, care for and support you at your home.
• Up to two family members can visit you at your residence or your home.
• if you are living in disability share accommodation with other people, you can still have visitors. There may need to be some guidelines to make sure there aren’t too many people visiting at once. But its important that your service works with you and the people who live with you at the residence to work this through to consider everyone’s needs.
• your workers and volunteers are not counted as visitors.
• if you need to have more than two in your home to provide disability support services you can.
• your workers, volunteers or family or friends are allowed to support you to leave your home for permitted reasons that are part of the directives.

Other areas covered in the factsheet include information about support for people with disability who have been in contact with someone who has been diagnosed with COVID-19, support for people with disability who are diagnosed with COVID-19 and Accessing Person Protective Equipment (PPE).

You can also get more information in the Frequently Asked Questions on the Queensland Government disability website, both for people with disability, their families and carers, and for disability service providers.

It’s important QDN members and their families keep providing feedback on their experiences to QDN, so that we can continue to be the authentic voice of people with disability.