Police reducing time spent on mental health callouts

Checkpoint

A senior nurse said he's filled with dread at the prospect of police pulling back from their involvement with mental health patients. Starting today, Police are reducing the time they'll spend on mental health callouts - including limiting ED handovers to 15 minutes and they'll also spend less time on transporting patients and dealing with low risk cases. Frontline workers have warned there's an increased risk of violence with police turning more of their focus to crime fighting duties. Duly authorised officers or DAO's, are nurses with special powers to assess and detain mental health patients and RNZ understand about half a dozen of them have quit over safety concerns. Greg Davies is a DAO who is still on the job in Marlborough and spoke to Lisa Owen.