One of Australia’s most senior police officers has called for a national overhaul to the way mental health episodes are dealt with, arguing clinicians, not cops, should attend cases if lives are not at risk.
The Australian Capital Territory’s chief police officer, Neil Gaughan, told Guardian Australia: “I don’t think police attending those particular incidents is in the best interest of anyone.”
“It’s clear that people do not act very well when they’re having a mental health episode with a person [attending] carrying a firearm,” Gaughan said.
A “significant proportion” of police call-outs in the ACT were mental health-related, he said.
The outgoing deputy commissioner’s comments come as New South Wales police finalise an internal review of their mental health policies after a string of fatal shootings. The findings are yet to be made public.
The NSW mental health minister, Rose Jackson, last year flagged significant reforms to the way police respond to people in acute distress. She conceded there were instances where the current system had “failed”.
Clare Nowland, Steve Pampalian, Jesse Deacon and Krista Kach were fatally wounded or shot by officers between May and September last year while in mental distress. Fifty-two people experiencing mental health distress died as a result of interactions with NSW police over the past five years.
The then acting NSW police commissioner, David Hudson, admitted in September that “showing up in uniform … can escalate a situation rather than de-escalate it”.
Gaughan said the ACT and NSW should not be the only states engaging in reform. He is advocating for all states and territories “to start a conversation” on a new national model.
“If we’re going [to] have a conversation about it, I think it needs to be a national one,” he said. “It’s pointless having two jurisdictions go at it alone.”
In late January a 26-year-old man was fatally shot in suburban Townsville by Queensland police during a mental health episode after a failed attempt to use a Taser.
There has been a spate of other fatalities during mental health incidents in Queensland, including the death of 52-year-old Steven Angus in Townsville after reports he was threatening to self-harm. Angus was shot by police after allegedly charging at officers with knives just hours after he was discharged from hospital.
Gaughan thinks officers in Australia should still attend when a person is self-harming or there is a risk to another person’s life because they can respond quickly.
He suggested Australia could follow the lead of London’s Metropolitan police where – since late 2023 – officers do not attend mental-health call-outs if no crime is being committed and there is no risk to life.
But he argued health experts should lead the discussion on how to change Australia’s approach, given mental distress was a health issue.
“It’s a political discussion as well because it will come with some funding [requirements], I suspect,” Gaughan said.
London’s new scheme – called “right person, right care” – aims to stop police officers being diverted from crime fighting when health workers are better trained to conduct welfare checks and transport people to mental health facilities.
Some health experts in the UK have expressed concerns, however, that mental health calls have gone unanswered under the new model, which also has not addressed the gap in police understanding of mental health issues.
Prof Pat McGorry, the executive director of Orygen in Australia, echoed those concerns, suggesting mental health professionals in the UK had not been resourced to cope with the additional demand.
“Police have taken a step back, but nobody has taken a step forward,” he said.
Australia trialled a similar approach 30 years ago, McGorry said. That model included community-based mobile teams travelling to the homes of people in crisis but “fell by the wayside” due to under-resourcing.
“Because they weren’t properly funded or resourced, they got overwhelmed with the demand, and then they began to rely on the police to take the lead [again],” McGorry said.
The ACT, NSW and Victoria have introduced the Police Ambulance and Clinician Early Response (Pacer) program whereby a mental health worker, a paramedic and a police officer can be sent as first responders to certain mental health incidents.
Gaughan said the program had been successful in the ACT but demand had outstripped capacity – meaning police were still often sent alone.
Last year NSW police disclosed it was in the early stages of looking at alternatives to Pacer in its response to a landmark law enforcement conduct commission report.
Assoc Prof Chris Maylea is a La Trobe University expert in mental health and law who worked on a report released last year that found police often escalate incidents.
Maylea said health professionals were reliant on police support, meaning any overhaul would require a complete invigoration of Australia’s mental health system.
“About 70% of people are sent home after they’ve been taken there [hospital] by police, so we don’t have a system that is working already,” he said.
In January Alexander Stuart Pinnock was shot dead by police outside a medical clinic in NSW after he allegedly attempted to take hostages while armed with a gun.
His family told the Sydney Morning Herald the death of Alex – who was in and out of hospitals and care facilities – showed what happens when the mental health system fails.
“We’ve got this problem of the missing middle,” McGorry said of the people who aren’t covered by commonwealth-funded primary care and the states’ focus on emergency treatment.
“They don’t get proper care and then the situation deteriorates to where they’re acutely ill and in desperate situations. That’s why these crises occur and why people get shot.”
