Collins wants inquiry into health data ‘cover up’
National Party leader Judith Collins has called for an inquiry by the Public Service Commissioner into whether there has been a public service ‘‘cover up’’ on mental health statistics.
On Sunday, Stuff revealed that a long-delayed and normally routine mental health report had been severely edited down after a months-long battle between officials at the Ministry of Health over what data to include.
One official expressed concern that there was a huge quantity of ‘‘data and negative statistics’’ without sufficient context. Another official noted that there was no legal requirement to produce the report and suggested it be shortened.
At one point Ministry of Health communications boss Kate Clark sent an email saying that there was ‘‘a lot of information that doesn’t need to be included’’.
The ministry has maintained it is simply trying to modernise the way mental health data is reported, moving some statistics to a different annual report and making some more regular.
‘‘There does need to be an investigation into whether or not there was a cover-up of the mental health figures,’’ Collins said.
‘‘It’s just a truly extraordinary situation and those emails that Stuff uncovered make it very plain that on the face of it there was an attempt at a cover up.’’
She said that National would be sending a letter to Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes today asking him to investigate.
Minister of Health Andrew Little told Stuff on Tuesday he was comfortable with the report. ‘‘The report is not a statutory report. There is no statutory obligation to disclose the reporting that has been disclosed.
‘‘There’s some complexity to the numbers that have been reported on, and they have been working on trying to make them more accessible.’’
Collins said that the report was shocking.
‘‘I was really shocked by that, it seems to me that these seclusions – which had seemed to come down when we left office – had started to go up again.
‘‘And that’s a really bad thing in itself because locking people away by themselves is clearly not going to be good for their mental health.
‘‘But it’s the fact that it was being hidden that was the most shocking part of it.’’