ACC dumps 'inhumane' therapy move for sex victims

ACC says it has abandoned a proposal to require second opinions that could have made sexual abuse victims tell their traumatic stories up to three times.

The agency is struggling with a 41 per cent increase in sexual abuse claims in the past few months, with new abuse claims running at 550 a month.

It told sexual abuse counsellors in workshops this month that it wanted to bring in clinical psychologists to assess claimants in three one-hour sessions after just one session with an initial counsellor. ACC itself would then choose which counsellor would continue any therapy.

Kathryn McPhillips of the Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation said the proposal would have retraumatised people who had already suffered the trauma of sexual abuse.

"It would be like assessing a broken leg by jumping on it. It's inhumane, unethical and immoral," she said.

"This is like going back to the Dark Ages."

But ACC's director of clinical services, Dr Kevin Morris, said last night that the proposal would be modified in response to feedback before it comes into force on September 14.

"The provider/assessor split - we won't be taking that because I don't think that's going to work," he said.

"Individuals having to disclose to a number of different people - that has always been a problem in this area. We have no intention of trying to make it any worse than it is. We are quite keen to improve that."

He said the agency also had no intention of removing a client's right to choose their own therapist.

ACC has spent just over $15 million on therapy for sexual abuse victims in each of the last three years and receives about 6000 new claims a year.

Ms McPhillips said disclosures always increased when there was publicity about issues such as the 2007 trials of the police officers accused of raping Louise Nicholas in the early 1980s.

But Dr Morris said the proposed changes were not motivated by cost-cutting, despite Government pressure on ACC which has led to other recent changes such as charging patients for physiotherapy.

He said ACC had spent $800,000 on a long-term research project led by Massey University which resulted in a 172-page "practice guideline" for sexual abuse cases last year.

He pointed to a technical paper produced as part of the Massey project which found that therapy was "most effective up to 16 weeks".

The original proposal outlined at workshops was that a new assessment would be required after 16 weeks and clients who were not making progress could then be referred to a psychologist, a psychiatrist or a mental health service. But Dr Morris said the length of therapy would be decided on a case by case basis.

Dr Kim McGregor of the National Network Ending Sexual Violence Together has written to ACC Minister Nick Smith and Justice Minister Simon Power asking them to defer the September 14 start date for the new system.