Matt Doocey: Mental Health Minister: On police stepping back from mental-health callouts

Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

The Mental Health Minister is confident about moving emergency responses to people in acute mental distress to health experts, rather than Police.

Police say they'll be phasing rollout - of stepping back from mental-health callouts, over a year, starting in November.

They'll lift the risk threshold for turning up - and start reducing how long officers stay with a patient they've transported to hospital.

Matt Doocey told Heather du Plessis Allan mechanisms are being worked through for managing the transition.

He says it's clear someone having a mental health crisis should get a health response, not a criminal one.

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