Karla Bergquist discusses mental health emergency callouts
The public service union says moving to the next stage of police’s withdrawal from mental-health-related jobs is dangerous for health workers and patients.
Health New Zealand and police said handover times between police officers and mental health workers at emergency departments would be moved from 60 to 30 minutes – rather than 15 minutes as was initially proposed.
This was the fourth and final phase of a gradual move away from police dealing with mental health issues, which started in 2024.
The rollout had been delayed, after concerns were raised by unions and the Mental Health Foundation.
Public Service Association (PSA) national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said the changes were “dangerous” and should be scrapped.
“Mental health workers are already under pressure. They need to be able to have police support when they deem it necessary. In their interest, and in the interest of members of the public.”
Fitzsimons said violence against mental health workers was “getting worse” and “it is the wrong time to be withdrawing police support”.
Police Association president Steve Watt.
RNZ/ Phil Pennington
But Police Association president Steve Watt said the changes would give police officers more time to focus on their jobs.
“Police aren’t the ultimate response to mental health. So any reduction in time-frames allows our members to be able to get out and do what they need to do.”
Watt said there would be times when police stayed in the emergency department for longer than 30 minutes, if they were dealing with a complex case.
Watt said he’d like to see emergency department handovers eventually moved to 15 minutes.
“That frees up our members to deal with other aspects of public safety … dealing with burglaries, dealing with assaults.”
In response to the PSA’s concerns about safety, Watt said more funding should be put in to mental health services to help deal with that issue.
Health NZ director of specialist mental health Karla Bergquist told Morning Report safety was a priority.
“Yes, it is. Safety of our staff and safety, obviously, of our patients who are seeking our support,” she said.
“I would say that police were spending a lot longer than 60 minutes in our emergency departments prior to the programme and that has come down quite significantly.”
Bergquist said many departments were already achieving the 30-minute target – about 50 percent.
She said some departments, particularly in rural areas, would never that achieve that threshold, and that was fine.
However, Bergquist said there would always be a safe handover should 30 minutes be exceeded.
“In many situations, they will stay longer where they’re needed and when the legislation requires them to. So, they need to have a safe handover to health staff,” she said.
Bergquist they’ve had great engagement with staff, unions and police around the country about how it could work.
“There are there are safety concerns, I’m not trying to minimise that, but there are processes in place and where the police are needed, they will stay,” she said.