A NEW emergency response team for mentally ill people in the northern suburbs will cut out lengthy waiting time in hospital emergency departments.
Police who attend incidents involving disturbed people can call a mental health clinician to assess people in their own homes.
Superintendent Dean Stevenson said under the old system two officers had to take a person suspected of having a mental health issue to an emergency department for assessment.
He said the average waiting time for assessment was three hours, which could be distressing for patients and and lead to confrontation if people did not want to go to hospital.
The new system was called the Northern police, ambulance, CATT (crisis assessment and treatment team) emergency response of NPACER, and involved these organisations in a co-ordinated approach to helping people suffering mental problems, he said.
Mr Stevenson said the program kept people in their homes for assessment where they would remain until it was decided whether they should be treated by a psychiatric facility or needed community-based care.
He said in many cases people needed community-based care but in the past had to be escorted by police to hospital and wait before a CATT member made this assessment.
“The new system is a better outcome for the person involved and less confronting and stressful,” he said.
“If someone does need it (hospitalisation) they are taken straight to the facility from home and do not have to wait in the emergency department.”
The new system freed police manpower and hospital emergency department resources, he said.
The scheme was trialled in two areas in Victoria and launched last week in the municipalities of Whittlesea, Darebin, Moreland and Hume.
