Ministers: let's shoot messenger

FORMER Deputy Bailiff Chris Day has now been tasked by the Policy Council with carrying out an initial scoping exercise to see whether there are any grounds for believing that HSSD whistle-blower Mike Hadley breached the States members' code of conduct in warning islanders all is not well at Accident and Emergency.

What the retired lawyer will not do is inquire into why Health and Social Services used Data Protection legislation to try to prevent a damning document from getting into the public domain.

Nor will he ask in whose interest any such gag might be. HSSD commissioned the report – presumably not because it thought everything at A&E was fine – and will have to pick up the pieces of any deficiencies. It is therefore unlikely to have much to hide.

So might it be the private company providing the service, an amalgam of the GP practices, that is coy about the findings of the College of Emergency Medicine investigation being released?

What would its view be about the linked report from FTP consultants Capita suggesting the contract the GPs enjoy via A&E is not providing value for money for taxpayers?

Could it be keen on the inventive use of Data Protection to gag a public document because it suggested that one of its directors had been less than candid with the College of Emergency Medicine reviewers?

Unfortunately, we are unlikely to know because although the system has Deputy Hadley in its sights, it does not want to know why it was necessary for him to blow the whistle in the first place.

Home's mishandling of the AFR Advocates affair at least led to some proper questions being asked and a verdict returned that there was no justification for keeping secret the settlement and damages paid to the law firm.

For something arguably far more serious – patient safety and the apparent waste of hundreds of thousands of pounds-worth of taxpayer and patient money every year – the only thing the Policy Council cares about is whether Deputy Hadley can be punished for exposing something not far short of a scandal.

It says much for this States's sense of priorities.