A raft of services at both federal and ACT levels in Canberra are being restricted to existing clients or shut down completely, leaving an unknown number of people without adequate support to recover from their illnesses, stakeholders say.

Woden Community Services director of mental health services and housing Pam Boyer said the scheme was focussed more on essential needs rather than supporting people's broader recovery.

She said the NDIS was only taking the top 10 per cent of people with the most severe illnesses and there was still a large cohort of people with less severe, but permanent and episodic illnesses, who were, or would soon, lose their existing community supports.

"Some of these services were shut in June, or weren't accepting any more clients from that date and others will go during the next year, so now the NDIS is the only place to go for support.

"We still have enormous numbers of people seeking support, but those people who don't meet the eligibility that might get worse with time, have nowhere to go."

A crucial issue, she said, was that NDIS participants were often only provided with limited and inconsistent "plan coordination" time a month - where a service provider can meet with the participant and organise support on their behalf.

But she said people with psycho-social illnesses often needed more support during episodes of illness than available under their plans.

WCS manager of mental health recovery and NDIS services Paul Russell said in the past week, he had had one recovery worker who needed to accompany a client to hospital for a minor issue.

But that single visit, for a client with a severe mental disorder needing the help, had taken more than five hours including administrative work afterwards - effectively exhausting the client's hours of support for the month.

While there had been good outcomes for many people on the scheme, Mr Russell said some clients had struggled to sign up, or not done so, because of the perceived stigma attached to identifying themselves as having a "permanent disability".

"There's also a lot of complexity with every case - when we get someone on a plan coming in we don't know, we've only got the bare details on the form," he said.

"It takes a long time to build that trust to find out exactly what other issues they might have - it might substance abuse or secondary mental issues, or other personal issues, but that takes time."

Ms Boyer said "A lot of the work we did, and still are doing, is what we call capacity-building - or helping someone with an illness recover and get better to live their life," she said.

"But the NDIS is focussed on those with a permanent disability, and that's really just about providing the essentials for living day to day at a basic level.

"Ideally, the scheme would also support people with their rehabilitation, but we are finding that plans are very variable and some people don't get much resources for this type of thing."

An NDIA spokeswoman said plans were still being approved and the agency was dealing first with those already found to be eligible.

"For people who have been advised that they are eligible for the NDIS and waiting for an initial planning meeting, the Agency will contact you within four weeks to advise details of a planning appointment," she said.

Editor's Note: This article has been updated to reflect that the NDIA responded to requests for comment.