Mental health responses make up a large chunk of their day-to-day callouts. Together they attend a mental health callout and between them work out what skills or personnel are appropriate for that particular incident. Between January 1, 2018, and October 1, 2023, police attended 199,425 mental health and suicide-related events nationally. That was a sentiment shared by Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand chief executive Shaun Robinson in his letter supporting a national rollout of alternative responses to community mental health to the Minister of Health at the time, Andrew Little. Shaun says the MHF had long supported mental health responses where police presence was the exception rather than the rule.

Source: Stuff January 05, 2024 12:03 UTC