I have found a fix for this issue.
For the initial drop down I have to settle with having this set using the double commas, however when this stage is submitted and moves on to the next stage i have inserted an action which uses the concat (substring-before & after function) as mentioned in the previous post to modify the entry.
However if anyone has an alternate method which would remove the double commas in the drop down menu I would love to hear from you.
Thanks again