Lance Burdett: Former Police Officer on the new approach to mental health cases

A former police officer is backing the force's approach to dealing with mental health cases.  

Police are in the middle of four stage process to pull back from attending mental health call outs.  

The Mental Health Foundation has created a petition calling on them to reverse course. 

It says first phase, which started in November, has already caused damage in the sector. 

Former Police Officer Lance Burdett told Andrew Dickens there are some situations where Police aren't the right answer.  

He says some people don't want to see a police officer in uniform when they are having a crisis. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, the Mental Health Foundations launched a petition calling for
police to stop its plan to scale back attendance at
mental health callouts. Police, of course say they're spending too
much time escorting voluntary patients between hospitals and emergency departments
and they want to fight crime. Form a police officer
and mental health advocate, Lance Burdett has worken up early
for us. Good morning to your lads here. So how

(00:23):
much time on an eight hour shift for an average
cop is spent on mental health callouts?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well, it can be quite a bit of time. And
it's not just a matter of transporting them. The way
it was done was there was also a sergeant had
to be following that patrol, so it took quite a
bit of time. Now, by the very term mental health crisis,
which is what these people are going through is mental health,
so they have a health issue. They're not criminals. Now.
In the early days when I joined the police, the

(00:51):
only way to get them help and support was to
arrest them and they put them in a police cell. Now,
somebody who's going through a mental health crisis, the last
thing they needed to be put into a police cells.
Not a great place for them.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Police launch phase one of a reduction program on November
the fourth of Mental Health Foundation. I'm not happy about it.
I want to ask the question, are police already scaling
back these operations because I heard the Minister Matt Doocy
on Ryan Bridges show last night and he seemed a
little unsure of that.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
As far as I know, Well, where ever possible, they
will be scaling back. And it's what they've done anyway,
They've always trehashed it, so they will only go to
people who at a real, genuine crisis where they might
have been causing violence. But again, you know, I do
know of one particular occasion where a taser had to
be used on somebody. Now, I mean that's just in humane,

(01:39):
isn't it. You can't negotiate with these people. You can't
because they're going through a crisis state, and oftentimes when
you turn up in your police uniform that just makes
it worse.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
So mental health crisis teams are already stretched for resources,
and now the police are wanting to pull back. If
not police, then who.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Services? That's their role is transporting patients, isn't it mental
health health patients?

Speaker 1 (02:06):
So what needs to have a mention of that? So
what needs to happen to enable the ambulance crews or
the ambulance services to have enough resources to cope with
the extra workload.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Well, they do have transport services already. Now. The reason
why I say this, and I hate to say it,
because I know that DAR under the pump probably worse
than the police are to be frank and it's not
a fully funded service. That the ambulance service need to
be fully funded by government to do this work.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Lance. I thank you for your work, Lands author, former
police officer, mental health advocate. For more from early edition
with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News Talks it be
from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio