Police to phase out responding to mental health callouts from November

Friday, 30 August 2024

Police will only attend any mental health callout where there is an immediate risk to life or safety.

The new approach will be phased in from November, and will be completed by September 2025.

Police say it will give them more time and resources to keep the community safe.

Police will only respond to mental health callouts where there is an “immediate risk to life and safety” from November as demand diverts frontline officers from their core roles, Police Commissioner Andrew Coster says.

Events which fall short of the threshold will be directed to “more appropriate” services, Coster said in a statement.

“It is important to be clear that police will still attend any jobs where there is an immediate risk to life or safety – that has not changed.”

Mental health callouts made up 11% of all 111 calls in the year to May, but only 5% had a criminal element, he said. Police received one mental-health related call every seven minutes, and it took up half a million hours of front-line police time each year.

“It has been clear to me for some time, that this is simply not sustainable and prevents us from keeping other areas of the community safe,” Coster said.

Police at the end of last year advocated for a “managed withdraw” from social issues, which it said were a distraction from core policing, in a briefing to incoming Police Minister Mark Mitchell.

But they also raised concerns that the changes came with risk.

In the briefing to Mitchell, police said it may assess an incident as low-risk and not dispatch a response, but that “subsequently the incident results in a poor safety outcome or even a threat to life”.

Mitchell said the new approach would ensure people got the “right care at the right time from the right people”, and that front-line officers have more time to focus on core policing and delivering the services expected of them to keep communities safe.

Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey said being met by a uniformed police officer sometimes caused more harm for those in crisis.

“People in mental distress are not criminals. Those seeking assistance deserve a mental health response, rather than a criminal justice response,” he said.

“Ultimately, we want to ensure people are getting the right care, at the right time, from the right people, and that our frontline officers have more time to focus on core policing and delivering the services expected of them to keep communities safe.

Police were working with health services on the shift, he added.