Service cuts from the disability ministry caused panic and stress. How did it all go wrong?

Disability funding changes have caused stress, uncertainty, and fear among families. How was this controversial decision made, and what happens now?

A shock announcement about service cuts from the Ministry of Disabled People, delivered via social media, caused panic and grief. That was just the beginning of a chaotic few weeks, involving condemnations of the move from outside and inside the government and an apology from the ministry - but crucially, not a reversal of the changes.

Today's episode of The Detail explains how it unfolded.

"Whaikaha put a post on its social media pages and updated its website to say that the purchasing guidelines had been changed," says Newsroom journalist Emma Hatton.

"The purchasing guidelines are a list of criteria that people who receive certain disability supports can use to guide whether they are able to purchase something...what Whaikaha did is they changed that criteria and they made it more restrictive so they narrowed what people could purchase."

Dr Rebekah Graham, the national executive officer of Parents of Vision Impaired NZ, says the funding stream most parents receive is called Carer Support.

"Traditionally you could only use it to pay for a support worker," she says.

But that changed over time and became more flexible, to allow families to meet their individual needs.

"Instead of just being for a care worker, you could actually start using it for things that gave you, as the carer, a bit of a break."

This could include things like going overseas to attend a specialised programme, a tablet to keep a child engaged while a parent had a moment to sit down, or devices used to monitor a diabetic child's blood sugar overnight so that parents don't have to wake every few hours to make sure their child doesn't die in their sleep.

Graham says that, as she understands it, these changes will get rid of those options.

"It hasn't been this grim in such a long time. Because as parents we're so enmeshed in the system, it's so familiar to us, we recognise the language. As soon as we read the announcement, we knew that all of our supports were gone... some parents were really distressed."

Emma Hatton says the ministry told their minister, Penny Simmonds, about budget issues on February 22. …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details