Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information his Department holds on the number of occasions on which bailiffs have seized operational equipment from private providers of NHS services; what the details are of each such occasion; and what steps his Department takes to prevent this happening.

The Department does not hold this information. The National Health Service body commissioning a service from the private sector should ensure that adequate safeguards are in place to ensure access to essential operational equipment in the event of one of its suppliers getting into financial difficulties.