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Disability Services NMDS 2012-14

Definition

The Disability Services Minimum Data Set (DS NMDS) and is a national collection that has:

  • a set of nationally significant data items or pieces of information that are collected in all Australian jurisdictions; and
  • an agreed method of collection and transmission.

The purpose of the DS NMDS collection is to facilitate the annual collation of nationally comparable data about National Disability Agreement (NDA)-funded disability services, and to obtain reliable, consistent data with minimal load on the disability services field. Under the NDA, the Disability Administrators in all Australian jurisdictions are responsible for ensuring 'that DS NMDS information will be comparable across all jurisdictions and years'.

Services within the scope of the collection are those for which funding has been provided, during the specified period, by a government organisation operating under the NDA. Therefore, if a service type outlet did not receive NDA funding for the reporting year (i.e. its NDA funding dollars for the financial year are zero), then details of this outlet should not be included in the data collection.

A funded agency may receive funding from multiple sources. Where a funded agency is unable to differentiate service users and/or staff according to funding source (i.e. NDA or other), they are asked to provide details of all service users and staff (for each service type).

Most agencies funded under the NDA are asked to provide information about:

  • each of the service types they are funded to provide (i.e. service type outlets they operate);
  • all service users who received support over a specified reporting period; and
  • the DS NMDS service type(s) the service user received.

The level of information a funded agency is asked to provide varies according to the particular service type (i.e. for each service type outlet).

Where services are provided to groups or families (e.g. 2.02, 2.04, or 2.05), details are only requested about the service user who is eligible for services, not their family or other group members. If a family member/carer receives respite services, limited information about the carer is required, such as the carer’s relationship to the service user and the carer’s age group.

Table 1: Information requested according to DS NMDS service type

Service type classification

Service type outlet—details required

Service user—details required

Services received by each service user in the reporting period—details required

Accommodation support

1.01 Large residential/institution (>20 people)—24 hour care

All

All

All (except for data items on hours received—items 17e–f)

1.02 Small residential/institution (7–20 people)—24 hour care

All

All

All (except for data items on hours received—items 17e–f)

1.03 Hostels—generally not 24 hour care

All

All

All (except for data items on hours received—items 17e–f)

1.04 Group homes (< 7 people)

All

All

All (except for data items on hours received—items 17e–f)

1.05 Attendant care/personal care

All

All

All

1.06 In-home accommodation support

All

All

All

1.07 Alternative family placement

All

All

All

1.08 Other accommodation support

All

All

All (except for data items on hours received—items 17e–f)

Community support

2.01 Therapy support for individuals

All

All

All (except for data items on hours received—items 17e–f)

2.02 Early childhood intervention

All

All

All (except for data items on hours received—items 17e–f)

2.03 Behaviour/specialist intervention

All

All

All (except for data items on hours received—items 17e–f)

2.04 Counselling (individual/family/group)

All

All

All (except for data items on hours received—items 17e–f)

2.05 Regional resource and support teams

All

All

All (except for data items on hours received—items 17e–f)

2.06 Case management, local coordination and development

All

All (except for community development activity within this service type)

All (except for community development activity within this service type)

2.07Other community support

All

All (except for community development activity within this service type)

All (except for data items on hours received— items 17e–f)

Community access

3.01 Learning and life skills development

All

All

All

3.02 Recreation/holiday programs

All

Linkage key elements only (items 2a–2e)

Items 17a–17b (service start date and date service last received)

3.03Other community access

All

All

All

Respite

4.01 Own home respite

All

All

All

4.02 Centre-based respite/respite homes

All

All

All

4.03 Host family respite/peer support respite

All

All

All

4.04 Flexible respite

All

All

All

4.05 Other respite

All

All

All

Employment

5.01 Open employment

All

All (except for carer –primary status, residency status, age group – items 12b,c,e)

All (except for data items on hours received—items 17e–f)

5.02 Supported employment

All

All (except for carer –primary status, residency status, age group – items 12b,c,e)

All (except for data items on hours received—items 17e–f)

Advocacy, information and alternative forms of communication

6.01 Advocacy

All

None

None

6.02 Information/referral

All

None

None

6.03 Combined information/advocacy

All

None

None

6.04 Mutual support/self-help groups

All

None

None

6.05 Alternative formats of communication

All

None

None

Other support

7.01 Research and evaluation

All (except number of service users – item 7)

None

None

7.02 Training and development

All (except number of service users – item 7)

None

None

7.03 Peak bodies

All (except number of service users – item 7)

None

None

7.04 Other support services

All (except number of service users – item 7)

None

None

The data collection is based around the concept of a 'service type outlet', each of which provides only one service type from a discrete location. A funded agency may be funded to provide one or more service types through one or more service type outlets. For example, an agency may be provided under the NDA to provide residential accommodation and respite services from one location or funded to provide group homes in three separate locations. A separate service type outlet form is completed for each service type the agency is funded to provide. If a service user receives more than one service type in the reporting period, a separate service user form is completed for each service type received.

Statistical units:

Service users, service type outlets, agencies.

Data are collected, usually by agencies, for each service type outlet they operate. These data are turned into estimated counts of service users by using a statistical linkage key.

Reporting period:

For the DS NMDS, the reporting period is the financial year e.g. 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013.

NDA-funded agencies are asked to record key information about service users on an ongoing basis, so that they can transmit the required information to their jurisdiction. Most jurisdictions require information to be transmitted at the end of each financial year quarter. Some only require information to be transmitted at the end of a financial year. At the end of the financial year, each jurisdiction is required to provide collated data to the AIHW.

Reference week:

For most jurisdictions, the annual reference week is the 7-day week preceding the end of the financial year (i.e. 24 June to 30 June).

For Victoria, the annual reference week is the 7-day week preceding the end of May (i.e. 25 May to 31 May).

For Western Australia, the annual reference week is the 7-day week beginning 21 May (i.e. 21 May to 27 May).

Privacy:

DS NMDS collections conducted in each jurisdiction must comply with Commonwealth privacy legislation, relevant state and territory privacy legislation, and established privacy and data principles.

Metadata items in this Data Set Specification

Below is a list of all the components within this Dataset Specification.
Each entry includes the item name, whether the item is optional, mandatory or conditional and the maximum times the item can occur in a dataset.
If the items must occur in a particular order in the dataset, the sequence number is included before the item name.

Data Elements
Reference Data Element Data Type Length Inclusion #
Address: Australian Postcode, (Postcode datafile) NNNN
Specific Information:

In the DS NMDS, this data element is collected twice.

The first occurrence refers to the postcode of the location of the service type outlet address and not the postal address. If the service type outlet is provided in the person’s home, the postcode of the service base from which the provider operates is to be entered, not that of the person. If recreation services are provided in various locations, the postcode of the service base from which the provider operates is to be entered.

The second occurrence refers to the postcode of a service user's usual residence ('usual' means 4 or more days per week on average). This is intended to capture the postcode of the 'geographic location' of a person, not their postal address postcode. The service user’s postcode must relate to their selected ‘residential setting’.

 Number 4 mandatory 2
Client—amount of assistance, total hours NNN
Specific Information:

In the DS NMDS this data item refers to the number of hours of support received by the service user for the NDA service type. It is collected twice within the DS NMDS:

  1. the number of hours of support received by a service user for a service type in the 7-day reference week (i.e. for the week preceding the end of the reporting period);and
  2. the number of hours of support received by a service user for a service type for a typical 7-day week.

This data item is only collected for service type activity codes of 1.05-1.07, 2.06, 3.01, 3.03 and 4.01-4.05.

The total hours reported should be rounded up to the nearest whole hour.

Where less than one hour was received, agencies may record ‘900’.

If a service type outlet is funded to provide service type 2.06 Case management, local coordination and development, the following rules apply for calculating Hours of assistance:

  • hours of assistance received by service users in terms of time spent on their behalf coordinating, managing or arranging brokerage of other services for service users should be reported;
  • hours of assistance received by service users in terms of actual services delivered, that have been arranged, purchased or brokered by a service type outlet (as part of providing service type 2.06) should not be reported;

If a service type outlet sub-contracts the provision of part or all of a service type (other than 2.06) it is funded to provide to another agency, then it is responsible for providing relevant details about the sub-contracted activity (e.g. in-home accommodation support provider sub-contracting the provision of some in-home accommodation support to another agency, which may or may not be NDA-funded). Hours of assistance received that are sub-contracted to another agency should be included by the service type outlet that has done the sub-contracting, and should not be reported by the agency that has been sub-contracted (to deliver the services) by the service type outlet.

Note: The concept of a typical week may not apply to some service users. In these cases service type outlets may calculate this data element as an average of the actual hours received by the service user over the reporting period. This item may be collected in one of two ways:

  • as an average of the actual hours received by this service user in a typical week (over the reporting period). That is, this item is derived from the 'total hours received during the reporting period'; OR
  • the service user's usual or typical weekly pattern of support while receiving your service in the reporting period. This enables service type outlets to indicate whether or not the reference week was typical.
String 3 mandatory 2
Informal carer—co-residency status, code N
Specific Information:

In the DS NMDS, this data item refers to the person's main informal carer—the person who provides the most significant care and assistance related to the service user's capacity to remain living in their current environment. It is recognised that two or more people may equally share the caring role (e.g. mother and father) however, for the purposes of this collection, characteristics are only requested for one of these carers.

A carer is considered to be co-resident if they usually live in the same household: ‘usually’ being 4 or more days per week on average.

Conditional Inclusion:

This data element should only be reported in relation to service users that have a carer (Person—Informal carer existence indicator, code N = 1).

Number 1 conditional 1

Comments

Origin:
Disability Services National Minimum Data Set (DS NMDS): data guide 2012–13

References


This content Based on Australian Institute of Health and Welfare material. Attribution provided as required under the AIHW CC-BY licence.

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Relation Count
As a numerator in an Indicator 0
As a denominator in an Indicator 0
As a disaggregation in an Indicator 0