Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the number of (a) surgical operations, (b) diagnostic tests and (c) endoscopy procedures which could be used to treat NHS patients and are available from independent sector healthcare providers in winter 2015-16.

Decisions about whether to use independent sector capacity are made at local level according to local need, as part of the operational management of capacity and demand.