ACC Minister Scott Simpson<\/a> had previously asked ACC, via his Letter of Expectations, to focus on long-term claimants and said the numbers were a \u201chuge result\u201d.<\/p>\n\u201cOften ACC staff deal with clients who have long-standing and challenging personal situations, and I rely on ACC staff to use their judgment given each client\u2019s individual circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Feel like they\u2019re throwing us on the trash heap\u2019<\/p>\n
One of those people recently deemed work-ready was Jonathan Simcock.<\/p>\n
He received a letter from ACC last Monday advising him he was work-ready and his payments would cease in 28 days.<\/p>\n
This is despite the most recent medical advice provided to ACC advising he was not work-ready, and strongly advised against discharging him from his long-term claim.<\/p>\n
He lived with chronic pain, anxiety and depression after a bike accident left him contending with a brachial plexus injury that has mostly paralysed his dominant arm.<\/p>\n
Simcock said the correspondence from ACC was \u201ctotally out of the blue\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was based on some of the internal guidance and I\u2019d been working on a back-to-work programme, working with ACC to try and get work capability for me and capacity to see wherever that would end up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were working towards this and then literally, from another internal guidance, totally went against any of the other information I was working on and believed that we were working together to get back into some sort of work and to see where that would progress to.\u201d<\/p>\n
His last medical assessment suggested he could work three hours a day, up to 10 hours a week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen on the 20th of this month [October] ACC wrote another internal guidance without having any more medical advice or any more investigation, and then from that, they said you\u2019ve been identified to be able to work in two roles over a 30-hour week full time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simcock said it would be \u201cimpossible\u201d to work 30 hours a week with his condition.<\/p>\n
He said the pain he suffered impacted his sleep and quality of life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would become more anxious, more stressed, lose sleep, wouldn\u2019t be able to do anything around home, I\u2019d only be able to do some work, and then I\u2019d have to have days off being sick.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be horrendous.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it felt like ACC would find any means necessary to get long-term claimants off the books.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just feels like they\u2019re stacking it up, and they\u2019re just putting their people in to get the answer they want, and the answer they want is they want all long-term people off ACC because we don\u2019t fit into the nice model.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a serious injury that affects my disability, that affects my life every single day. It\u2019s an incredibly complex and difficult situation. ACC is meant to help me, and basically they\u2019re just throwing us, all of us, onto the trash heap.\u201d<\/p>\n
After inquiries from Nine to Noon, ACC agreed to reassess Simcock\u2019s case, and reinstated his payments in the meantime.<\/p>\n
Forster said the \u201cexit strategies\u201d used by ACC were systemic, and it was about more than one person.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve just heard an example of an individual case where that assessment was the person couldn\u2019t go back to work, but ACC still cut them off, and that\u2019s happening across the board at scale.\u201d<\/p>\n
ACC responds<\/p>\n
ACC client recovery acting head Matthew Goodger confirmed they were reassessing Simcock\u2019s case.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry to hear about Jonathan\u2019s situation and the distress this is causing him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are taking another look at his case. While we do, he will continue to receive weekly compensation.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis case manager has been in touch with him to let him know. We will continue to work with his GP and his other providers and fund any rehabilitation or treatment he needs for his covered injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goodger said ACC\u2019s role was to support people to recover from their injuries so they could return to work and independence.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn mid-2024 we changed the way we managed some long-term claims to ensure these clients were getting the dedicated, interdisciplinary support they needed to get back to independence, including the establishment of new teams of one-to-one case managers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis focus is reflected in an increased number of long-term claims being closed as clients were successfully supported to recover from their injuries so they could return to their pre-injury role or other work types, or in some cases identifying that covered injuries had resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, ACC advocate Warren Forster told RNZ\u2019s Nine to Noon many clients \u2013 most of whom have chronic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59784,23845,42,48425,43,37968,75704,3591,1118,1653,1974,75703,61,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-104396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-acc","tag-clients","tag-headlines","tag-longterm","tag-news","tag-nine","tag-noon","tag-numbers","tag-of","tag-payments","tag-record","tag-stops","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}