Mr. Bernard Gloster:

While I cannot talk to the individual case, we did tackle the issue of long waiters last year to a very successful level, although there is more to do. Regarding the use of private capacity for waiting lists, the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, uses that and it uses every possible option that is available. In terms of private capacity for beds to support emergency care during the winter, we had a full framework with the Private Hospitals Association and we did use and will continue to use private bed capacity. There is no fundamental or principled objection to using that. I will use whatever is available to aid the comfort of the public because I cannot wait forever or expect people to wait. However, it is not always available to the extent that people think it is available.