7 April 2025
D Reddington
[FYI request #30098 email]
Tēnā koe
Your request for official information, reference: HNZ00079372
Thank you for your email on 15 February 2025, asking Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora for the
following under the Of icial Information Act 1982 (the Act):
1. Please provide a list of hospitals that have onsite security, the number of onsite security
at one time, and weather they are assigned to different locations in the hospital Ie. ED.
2. Please also provide, the number of security officers injured in hospitals, broken down by
severity levels.
3. I would also like the number of restraints undertaken by security broken down by each
hospital, for the last 5 years.
4. A breakdown of the number of incidents undertaken by security officers in hospitals
across NZ, broken down by hospital for the last 5 years would be greatly appreciated.
Response
To provide you with further context in terms of your request please note that information on onsite
security, security staffing arrangements and where these staff are assigned to work in hospitals is
not held centrally.
In order to provide the information requested, we would need to reach out to each Health NZ
hospital and collate the responses. However, I am able to provide you with the centrally held
information which is set out in the response below.
If you are interested in the security arrangements for a particular hospital site, I invite you to submit
a new request with due particularity (section 12(2)) advising the name of the site and information
being sought.
1. Please provide a list of hospitals that have onsite security, the number of onsite security
at one time, and weather they are assigned to different locations in the hospital Ie. ED.
I can confirm the following hospitals have dedicated security staff in their emergency departments:
Waitākere, North Shore, Auckland City, Middlemore, Waikato, Wellington, Christchurch and
Dunedin Hospitals.
Under section 9(2)(c) of the Act, I am refusing the request for the numbers of onsite security staff
at the above locations in order to avoid prejudice to measures protecting the health or safety of
members of the public.
2. Please also provide, the number of security officers injured in hospitals, broken down by
severity levels.
3. I would also like the number of restraints undertaken by security broken down by each
hospital, for the last 5 years.
4. A breakdown of the number of incidents undertaken by security officers in hospitals
across NZ, broken down by hospital for the last 5 years would be greatly appreciated.
As noted above this information is not held centrally, and we are refusing these parts of your
request under section 18(f) of the Act as it requires substantial collation and research. We invite
you to submit a new request specifying the specific hospital site you are interested in receiving the
information on in reference to the information released above.
How to get in touch
If you have any questions, you can contact us at
[email address].
If you are not happy with this response, you have the right to make a complaint to the
Ombudsman. Information about how to do this is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
by phoning 0800 802 602.
As this information may be of interest to other members of the public, Health NZ may proactively
release a copy of this response on our website. Al requester data, including your name and
contact details, wil be removed prior to release.
Nāku iti noa, nā
Sue Gordon
Head of Health, Safety, Wellbeing & Organisation Resilience
TeWhatuOra.govt.nz
Health NZ, PO Box 793,
Wel ington 6140, New Zealand
