Mr. Bernard Gloster:

The average rate of use of private hospital beds this year has been approximately 160 per day. When I arrived in March, that was coming out of the winter period and it was not funded or front-loaded for the rest of this year. To be fair to the Secretary General, it was one of the measures on which I asked him to give me a bit of space, which he did. Coming in towards planning for the months ahead I stated to this committee that I agreed we should plan ahead rather than pick up the phone on any one day and look for beds. With the agreement of the Department and the Minister, we issued a framework to the private hospitals which will see us continue to use the 160 private beds per day for November, December, January and February, plus a surge capacity. That surge capacity could go up to 250 or 260 beds, or even 300 beds, depending on the pressure. We will review the position at the end of February as to what the future looks like. What the Private Hospitals Association is predominantly critical of, as it is entitled to be although its pressures are different from mine, is that we have not committed to a longer term strategy of two to three years of usage. Right now, I am simply not in a position to consider that.