18. To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent assessment he has made of the delivery of emergency care in (a) independent sector treatment centres and (b) NHS hospitals. (292245)

Independent sector treatment centres provide elective care, not emergency care.

Primary care trusts commission national health service hospital trusts to provide emergency care services according to local needs and monitor performance.

The Department has set an operational standard that 98 per cent. of patients should not spend more than four hours in accident and emergency departments.

National annual performance against the standard was 98.1 per cent. in 2008-09.