Committee hears bill to codify 911-to-988 call transfers for behavioral-health crises

State lawmakers heard testimony supporting House Bill 597 on technical changes to New Hampshire’s enhanced 911 law that would explicitly allow transfers from 911 call centers to the statewide 988 crisis lifeline. Representative Bill Boyd, the bill’s sponsor, said the changes would "codify what 911 is already doing" and align statutory language with current protocols.

Supporters told the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee that 911 centers and the Department of Health and Human Services have worked together since 988 launched to create a warm-handoff protocol for nonemergent behavioral-health calls. Holly Stevens, director of public policy at NAMI New Hampshire, said transferring appropriate calls to 988 helps ensure callers get a mental-health response while freeing 911 to handle physical-health and public-safety emergencies. "When individuals with mental illness receive the right services at the right place at the right time, fewer folks end up homeless, hospitalized, or incarcerated," Stevens said.

Mark Doyle, director of emergency services and communications at the Department of Public Safety, described the changes as clarifying language in the enhanced 911 statute so the existing transfer practice is statutorily authorized. Doyle told the committee that since January 2022 the state has facilitated "warm handoffs with 988" nearly 500 times, and said transfer protocols include triage charts that dispatchers use to determine whether calls should remain with 911 or be handed off. He described safeguards that send a call back to 911 if a transferred incident becomes emergent and requires police, fire or emergency medical response.

Jenny O’Higgins, DHHS legislative liaison for behavioral health, said New Hampshire now operates two locally trained crisis call centers that answer phone, text and chat around the clock and are part of the national 988 Lifeline network. She said geo-routing improvements mean callers can reach the closest trained center even if they have an out-of-state area code, and that most 988 contacts are deescalated without a mobile response. Stevens and O’Higgins also described mobile crisis teams and crisis-stabilization centers as part of a broader three‑pillar crisis-care approach: someone to talk to, someone to respond and somewhere to go.

Committee members asked about dispatcher training and how triage decisions are made. Doyle and witnesses described about 16 weeks of telecommunicator training, the use of triage charts and a two-way handoff process in which transferred calls can be returned to 911 if the caller’s risk escalates. Supporters said the bill only aims to align statute with current practice and does not change when or how calls are transferred.

The committee received written testimony and multiple witnesses urged an "ought to pass" recommendation. No formal committee vote was recorded during the hearing.

The bill sponsor and witnesses said if HB 597 passes the Department of Safety will update rule-making to reflect the statutory language.

Future steps: The committee may schedule executive sessions or further questions to staff before voting on the bill. Supporters asked lawmakers to move the measure forward so the transfer authority is explicit in statute.