It was an “omission” that people with disabilities were not mentioned in the Government’s COVID-19 emergency response plan, a senior bureaucrat has told a royal commission.

The Royal Commission into Disability is investigating the impact of coronavirus on the disability community and the Federal Government’s response.

Simon Cotterell, Assistant Secretary from the Department of Health told the commission, staff worked under immense pressure to prepare the action plan, but that people with disabilities were left out.

“It was prepared very quickly and under great pressure by staff conscientiously doing their very best. I think it is an omission that disability is not mentioned …. but the word ‘vulnerable groups’ is used,” he said.

“The intention of using that language in that context is vulnerability to the virus whether it is exposure or severe impacts of the virus and via that mechanism people with disability would be covered.

“But I think it is an omission that they weren’t specifically mentioned and in a number of places it would be useful for people with a disability to have been mentioned.”

The commission heard that there was no single area in the department that had responsibility for the health of people with disabilities.

“We were all very busy focusing on what we could do to respond to the pandemic,” Mr Cotterell said.

Mr Cotterell also said there was no exact data on the numbers of people with disabilities who had contracted COVID-19 or who had died from the virus.

“We don’t know, but there is some data that the NDIS commission collects from notification from NDIS service providers. But we don’t know, we don’t have a full picture,” he said.

The inquiry will also hear from the head of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the body that runs it — the National Disability Insurance Agency.

Earlier this week the royal commission heard that the Federal Government’s coronavirus emergency response plan made no mention of people living with a disabilities.

It had also been told people have gone without essential support for weeks and of rising fear among a community unsure about constantly changing messages.

The commission is expected to address evidence given earlier this week about people living with disability being overlooked in the Federal Government’s coronavirus emergency response plan.

Witnesses also talked about being left for weeks without support workers as well as problems with remote learning.

One parent said her daughter’s school tried to have her child classified as more severely disabled to secure greater funding.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth told the royal commission that data on people with disabilities who had contracted or died from COVID-19 wasn’t collected because it would not have had a difference in the initial emergency response to the outbreak of the pandemic.

“That is certainly not to say it’s not important to collect data on the effects of COVID-19 on people with disability — it is simply to illustrate why it’s not in the headline data,” he said.