HEALTH and Social Services Department members issued a further statement at the weekend in an attempt – critics might suggest this is being generous – to provide greater clarity on the on-going row about providing an adequate wheelchair service for the Bailiwick.

Unfortunately, the release, combined with further comments from former member Deputy Mike Hadley, merely highlighted how far this is straying into a damage-limitation exercise for the department rather than a mature examination of whether wheelchair users are getting a good deal.

An original report by HSSD’s own staff attempted to lay the basis for that debate. It is its subsequent abridged version and what led to that editing that has caused all the difficulties the department now faces, including a petition to demand a debate in the States.

On Saturday, senior occupational therapist Joy Battle issued a personal statement in which she said that the original report ‘was never intended to be a document used in the public arena to try to discredit HSSD as an organisation’.

It is a quite extraordinary thing to say. Why would members of the Health team try to discredit its own employer? Those who contributed to the document were merely trying to assess how well the wheelchair service was meeting the needs of users, concluded that it wasn’t doing very well and proposed improvements.

What the ‘discredit’ statement seems to reflect is the department’s horror of anything bad emerging about it.

As Deputy Hadley put it, ‘The ethos of management throughout the HSSD is to cover up problems rather than resolve them.’

A footnote to Mrs Battle’s statement says that she was not pressured or interfered with in making it. That, too, is rather extraordinary and hints at something worrying if the department has to deny something that, had it done it, would be unacceptable behaviour.

If Health is concerned about regaining public confidence, it has a simple remedy. That is to acknowledge any deficiencies in the service as identified by the original report and say how it will put them right – or why it cannot, or will not.

Islanders would appreciate the HSSD being straight with them.