Police are receiving 12,000 attempted or threatened suicide calls a year, increasing the strain on their resources.
The national figure of 11,939 calls last year amounts to an average of nearly 33 a day – and the figures have been rising steadily in the past five years.
But police say they have little expertise in the area of mental health, and the increasing time spent on callouts takes officers away from other duties.
They are now working with the Ministry of Health in an effort to understand why people in distress – or their friends and family – appear to be ringing police rather than mental health crisis services. Continue reading