The number of 111 calls that police code as related to either "mental health" or "attempted suicide" has soared by nearly 50 per cent in four years, according to the People's Mental Health Review.
The review is a project of psychotherapist Kyle MacDonald, comedian Mike King and others calling for people to share their experiences of the mental health system.
The review team said data they had obtained from the police showed that the number of 111 calls coded primarily as "mental health" or "attempted suicide" was 31,059 in the 2011/12 financial year. In 2015/16, it was 45,476 - an increase of 46 per cent.
"This represents one call every twelve minutes, every day of the year in New Zealand," the review team said.
"The police communication centre can only assign one code to each call, and these figures represent those calls primarily coded as either 'mental health' or 'attempted suicide'.
"Given there are a wide range of reasons people with mental health need to call the police, these numbers likely also under-represent the volume of mental health work that the New Zealand police are asked to do.
"It seems like yet another red flag among many, and frankly comes as no surprise," says MacDonald.
"Our submissions are showing a clear trend of people being unable to access services in a timely manner, and of a workforce feeling overwhelmed by demand. It makes sense the NZ police would also be seeing increased demand."
He cited the police statement last week outlining increased training for communication centre staff to enable them to better deal with mental health calls. The increase in such calls explained why the extra training was needed.
"I think it's a great initiative; anything that improves the services that people experiencing mental illness get has to be a good thing.
