ACC defends closure of specialised unit handling claims from sexual abuse victims

Some therapists say they have been surprised by ACC's decision to shut down its sensitive claims unit as they were not consulted.

The Wellington-based sensitive claims unit was "disestablished" in September 2020 but its axing has only just come to light.

Claims are now being dealt with by teams of case managers across eight regional offices, sparking concerns about privacy.

Sensitive claims can be made for physical or mental injuries following criminal acts, including sexual violence.

ACC Minister Carmel Sepuloni revealed the move when she answered a recent Parliamentary written question from Green MP Jan Logie, and this morning ACC executives were pressed for answers by Logie when they appeared before the education and workforce select committee.

ACC's sensitive claims portfolio manager Selena Dominguez told the select committee the changes were made because of a high rate of turnover among case managers and difficulty in attracting the right staff to the Wellington unit.

ACC had consulted with its sexual violence customer advisory panel and mental health sector liaison group, she said.

"We also engaged very regularly with our professional associations, the NZAC [New Zealand Association of Counsellors] and the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists," Dominguez said.

Later, in a statement to RNZ, ACC said it had been liaising with the sector about the proposed changes since 2019, including conducting webinars, liaison group meetings and sending newsletters.

MP critical of decision

But Logie said, in the select committee, practitioners had heard nothing of the plan and were appalled by ACC's move.

"I have to say I've spoken with one of those lead agencies that didn't know this was happening and was absolutely appalled. So if you are trying to tell me you have their confidence, you don't."

Gay Puketapu-Andrews from the New Zealand Association of Counsellors and Victoria Smith from the Association of Psychotherapists both sat on ACC's mental health sector liaison group before it was disbanded earlier this year.

They said ACC told them at the end of 2019 that it planned to stop giving sensitive claims clients personal case managers and instead assign them to a team of what it called "recovery partners or assistants".

Recovery partners worked in teams of up to 12 to manage more complex cases while recovery assistants worked in teams of up to 20 to manage cases that did not require as much attention.

"Both associations opposed that completely," Smith told RNZ. "But we were never told the sensitive claims unit was shutting down. I only found out three weeks ago."

However, New Zealand Association of Counsellors president Christine Macfarlane said suppliers were told about the change, but the information might not have filtered through to the therapists who work for them.

"So depending on the communication between ACC, the supplier and the counsellor is how aware the counsellor is of the changes. "

Clients 'distressed'

Despite some being in the dark about the changes, therapists and clients had noticed it had become more difficult to deal with ACC, Smith said.

"We noticed that we would start getting emails from people from ACC, in the assisted recovery team, with no names. We wouldn't know who they were, who was contacting us. It's made it much more impersonal. It causes confusion and disruptions to continuity as well."

It was also distressing for clients to have their personal information shared so widely, she said.

"Clients are often really quite distressed to hear that their information could be read by any one of 20 people. ACC has processes around that, but it's a daunting thought. It seems almost to be, to me, business modelling of stories of human suffering."

ACC told RNZ when a sensitive claim was lodged, a client would have one recovery partner and later their claim could be managed by a team, though this move would only be done in consultation with the client and/or their provider.

But Puketapu-Andrews, from the Association of Counsellors, said she had to "really push ACC" to allow her clients to remain with their case managers after they refused to be transferred to a team.

"They don't want any more than one person having access to their private information. I'm Māori and I work mainly with Māori ... and Māori consider that sensitive information to be tapu information."

Smith said she had been told a client could not simply remain with an individual case manager long term.

"I've had some clients object to being moved, and in one case they were told it doesn't have to be moved, we'll keep in this process for six months but then it will have to be moved over."

Macfarlane said some counsellors had reported their clients were fine with the changes but others had said "it hasn't been so good".

Rosie*, who filed a sensitive claim in November last year, said keeping track of communications with different case managers was hard.

"I have definitely found it difficult to keep track of who I'm dealing with. I get emails and phone calls from different people with sometimes varying information.

"This makes me worry that my claim has fallen through the cracks, particularly because of the long wait time, and I find myself contacting ACC regularly to check in on my claim, which seems like a seriously inefficient system."

Logie said therapists and clients had concerns that some case managers in regional offices lacked training to deal with sensitive claims.

"Some of the feedback I've been hearing from survivors going through the process would suggest very clearly that not all of them are [well trained] by the inappropriate questions and responses that people have had."

In a response to the Parliamentary written question from Logie, Sepuloni said all recovery partners and assistants completed training, including an online course and facilitated learning.

ACC began changing the way it managed clients in 2014, following a series of privacy breaches that sparked the corporation to begin a large-scale change programme. The organisation launched what it called "next generation case management" to improve its processes and become more "client centred".

* ACC declined to be interviewed for this story but later provided a statement to RNZ. This story has been updated to reflect information from that statement.