6. Question No. 6—PoliceARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) to the Minister of PoliceQuestion No. 6—Police6. ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa) to the Minister of Police: What announcements has she made about supporting New Zealanders' mental health and reducing demand on Police?Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister of Police): The Government today announced work is under way to shift the way calls to 111 for people experiencing mental distress will be managed. Over the next five years we've committed to a nationwide roll-out of a multi-agency and co-response teams to help people who need that assistance. We know that the existing pilots have demonstrated just how effective having police and mental health workers can be in those times of acute mental health crisis. We want this in every district and we're going to provide the resources necessary to make that happen. This change will also take pressure off police who do an incredible job. We'll let them focus on their core function of policing and public safety.Arena Williams: What does a co-response model look like?Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: Today's announcement was alongside the successful Wellington district co-response model. In that pilot there was a combination of a paramedic a police officer and a mental health specialist to respond to call outs and share information and coordinate services across those three different agencies. Through improved cross-agency information sharing a lot of call outs are resolved without the need of a police officer or a paramedic. The evidence was clear. The University of Otago found that those seen by the co-response team were more likely to receive help in the community 30 percent less likely to wait in the emergency department and more likely to have better health outcomes in the weeks that followed. We want this nationwide and that's why we'll deliver this over the next five years.Chris Bishop: Point of order. I seek leave to table the 2017 social investment mental health co-response policy announced by the Government that was then cancelled by Labour in 2018.SPEAKER: Leave is sought. That's publicly available isn't it?Chris Bishop: I'm not necessarily sure that it's still publicly available. I think it would elucidate the House. If the Minister had actually bothered to read it she could have not bothered with that last supplementary.SPEAKER: Yeah be careful. Don't tell the House something—Chris Bishop: I said I'm not sure.SPEAKER: Yes I'm fairly certain so I'm not going to put it.Arena Williams: What other steps will be taken to improve the response to mental health distress?Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: There's more. In 2022 10 percent of all 111 calls for assistance were for people in mental distress. In May 2023 alone police committed 6000 officer hours to mental health responses. That's why we'll also be improving triaging in emergency communication centres we'll increase the use of tele-health and digital counselling and we'll also work on multi-agency crisis hubs as alternatives to emergency departments. This a significant shift and we've directed agencies to develop a full implementation plan including resourcing requirements by March next year. Just as the Government set an aspirational target for increasing the police front line by 1800 and delivered it and we'll do the same with the way we respond to mental health.Arena Williams: What feedback has she seen for this announcement?Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: There's been a lot. Shaun Robinson of the Mental Health Foundation has described a nationwide roll-out as a no-brainer" stating that "What the trial of the co-response team showed was that a significant number of people got … much better level of support without having to go to hospital [or] without having to go into police custody. So it's a win win win." I also agree with feedback from the Hon Mark Mitchell who has said our police service get tied up with a whole lot of things they shouldn't actually be dealing with and we've got to get them back on focus responding to members of the public and putting their hand up for help. I look forward to cross-party support on this excellent initiative.Hon Mark Mitchell: Why did the incoming Labour Government cancel National's fully funded co-response model in 2017 that was welcomed by the Police Commissioner by St John Ambulance and by mental health experts; why have they not funded that project; and why have they waited six years and six weeks out from a general election to re-announce National's policy?Hon GINNY ANDERSEN: With additional police resources there are currently six running right across six different districts in New Zealand. I'm surprised that the member is not happy to know that these six pilots are now being made permanent with a view to making them in all police districts to improve mental health outcomes for New Zealanders and free up the ability for police to get on with police work."