John MacDonald: Don't panic about the police mental health call-out changes - Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

From today, the police don’t intend to respond to every mental health callout. But I don’t think we’re going to see any major difference. I’ll tell you why shortly,. And it’s based on an experience I had on Friday night.

So if you’re worried about the police saying “not our department” if you call up, as of today, about someone having a mental health issue - don’t panic.

But you know the background to this and what’s led to today’s change with the threshold for transporting mental health patients increasing; there’ll be fewer visits to mental health clinics; and police handovers to mental health staff will be shorter than what they have been.

So 11 percent. That’s a key stat. Before today, 11 percent of police work involved mental health call-outs. And, as Chris Cahill from the Police Association was saying on Newstalk ZB today, whenever the cops are called-out to one of these jobs - it can keep them away from doing other police work for hours.

He says, on average, a mental health callout keeps police tied-up for three hours - sometimes as long as five or six hours.

So Chris Cahill is pleased about these changes coming into force today. One thing he isn’t happy about, though, is that it’s being forced by the police. As he said this morning, Health NZ hasn’t come to the party itself on this one.

He says police will still turn up if people are at-risk of h