My Submission to the Disability Care and Support Public inquiry
There needs to be one universal information form for a disabled child. Every time we deal with a doctor, a specialist doctor, a paediatrician, an allergist, an optometrist, an audiologist, a dentist, a paediatric dentist, a geneticist, a psychologist, a hospital, a physiotherapist, a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, a welfare agency, a respite agency, a funding agency, a local government agency, a state government agency or department, a federal government agency or department and all the referrals, duplicates and repeats of them all, we have to fill a form regarding the details of our disabled children. Every form asks for approximately the same information but every form is subtly different. There needs to be one form with all the necessary information on it. The form needs to be portable and transferable between all medical professionals, therapists, government and non-government agencies and departments who deal with disabled children. The form could be tailored so that some information which is not relevant to a particular person could be excluded or other unique information for an agency included. It can be long and detailed but should be easy to read and with lots of space to fill out the details. It could be electronic or if paper based, it should be able to be scanned or faxed. But, there should be just one form and it should only have to be filled out once and then up-dated once a year. This should be so easy to implement and yet would save so much time, money, paper and most importantly reduce the stress for already stressed-out parents of disabled children. 

Thank you for the opportunity to make this submission,

David Stanton
Parent and Carer