SA Police will trial a new triage system that will aim to weed out unnecessary welfare checks and free up officers

With demand for SA Police attendance on the rise, a new system will be trialled which will cut down on and aim to eliminate “unnecessary welfare checks”.

Police are cutting back on the types of call-outs they attend in a bid to free-up resources so they can focus on more serious jobs.

As demand for police attendance continues to rise, SA Police is trialling a new triage system that aims to weed out unnecessary welfare checks, meaning police will no longer go to all of the types of checks it had previously been attending.

A police welfare check is when a member of the public or someone from a government agency calls police and asks them to check on the welfare of someone.

SA Police will trial the new triage system. Picture Greg Higgs.

SA Police assistant commissioner Philip Newitt says police are taking a “cautious and steady” approach to rolling out the trial, and if successful, police will likely consider tightening its triage policies for other types of call-outs as well.

“We don’t want to discourage people from ringing the police when they really do need us but we don’t want them to ring for superfluous reasons either,” Mr Newitt said.

“It’s important that we have our police available and attending those matters where our skills, equipment and knowledge can be best used for community safety.”

In 2022/23, police received more than 53,000 welfare check requests, and of these officers were deployed on 33,000 occasions, with each task taking an average of two hours and seven minutes.

Just under 10 per cent of the requests were made by other government agencies, such as the SA Ambulance service, while the remainder were made by members of the public.

Mr Newitt said some of the unnecessary welfare check requests police attended included a parent calling to say their child would not get into their car and they wanted officers to help; and numerous instances where patients had been discharged from hospital with a cannula still in their arm and officers were asked to bring them back to hospital or ensure the person had removed it themselves.

Police will cut back on call outs in a bid to free up officers in need. Picture: TAIT SCHMAAL.

SA Ambulance Employees Association general secretary Leah Watkins said she hoped the new policy would not put ambulance officers at risk.

“I can appreciate the rationale for needing to go through this review process and triage process and I would hope that any changes that flow don’t put any additional onus on our crews to enter potentially hazardous or dangerous situations without SAPOL attendance,” she said.

“And that we can still continue doing what we’ve always done and making a risk assessment and seek back-up as needed.”

Mr Newitt said SA Police were expecting there would, on occasions, be disagreements between it and other agencies, such as SA Ambulance, on the necessity of police attendance.

“There will be that individual example where you go there’s a bit of a stand-off between the agencies but there’s an escalation process to allow that to occur in real time,” he said.

The trial will be reviewed in August.

“So the end result of that is someone’s going, and it’s working out who’s the best to go.”

Mr Newitt said as part of the new call-out parameters, police would ask callers a series of questions to ensure they fully understood the circumstances and could make informed decisions.

He said if police decided not to attend a welfare check, the caller would be given advice or directed towards other agencies, and “they’re always invited if the circumstances change to ring back”.

Police would continue to attend all incidents where a person’s life was at risk, a person had likely died, a crime had occurred or child safety was jeopardised.

Police Association of South Australia President Mark Carroll said SA Police were facing an “ever-increasing demand on services,” and redirecting unnecessary welfare checks to other agencies would “free up thousands of hours for members to get back to their core duties — including responding to urgent and critical events.”

An SA Ambulance Service spokesperson said the organization supported the new triage system and was working closely with police as they undertake the trial.

The trial will be reviewed in August.