8. Health agencies give further consideration to providing financial support to Māori providers, Pacific providers, mental health and addiction services, and other community providers delivering high quality care to disabled people, in recognition of the additional care and support they provide disabled people, many of whom feel ignored or let down by health care services during the pandemic response. Designing systems and policies for disability inclusiveness (medium-term) 9. All government agencies undertake work with disabled people to improve real-time data collection, modelling, monitoring and rapid analysis using high quality ethnicity and disability data across multiple levels including case numbers and rates, transmission, severity and access to and quality of care (including the performance of public health responses) to inform and assess strategies for disabled people. 10. All government agencies consider how best to invest in whānau as natural supports for disabled people. This includes understanding the best way to support particular communities, such as Māori and Pacific peoples. 11. All government agencies explore the impacts and possible solutions to the digital divide in Aotearoa, including its impacts on disabled people and their whānau. 12. The health sector continues work to increase availability and accessibility of mental health and addiction services for disabled people and their whānau, and ensuring services are able to respond to increased demands in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its responses. Transforming society’s cultural assumptions about disability (medium-term) 13. Government ensures disabled people can fully participate in all levels of the COVID-19 response, from governance and advisory roles, to supporting on the ground responses as professionals or educators. 14. Government agencies with disability support responsibilities to ensure Mahi Aroha – the Carers’ Strategy Action Plan 2019-2023 is fully implemented and that there are actions that: a. Recognise the value of carers and other disability support workers. b. Provide professional development for carers and other disability support workers. c. Appropriately remunerate carers and other disability support workers. Areas for further consideration A number of observations from this phase of the Inquiry require consideration by government agencies, with a view to taking action in the short to medium term. These include: • Applying lessons learnt from the unique Māori and Pacific peoples’ community approaches first highlighted during the Delta outbreak, and continuing throughout Omicron, so that tailored responses to the pandemic are not seen as a ‘one-off’ but as a way of working. 11