Four weeks after a cyber attack hit NHS organisations in London, NHS England London has published an update on the clinical impact of the attack.
The statement says that NHS organisations across London continue to work in partnership to ensure people who require critical and urgent care receive it and NHS England is also continuing to work with Synnovis and the National Crime Agency to respond to the criminal ransomware attack on Synnovis systems.
NHS England London declared a regional incident and continues to coordinate work across affected services, as well as with neighbouring providers and national partners to manage disruption.
While some services are now operating at similar levels to previously, there continues to be some disruption.
Over the fourth week following the attack, the data shows that across the two most affected trusts, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, 1,517 acute outpatient appointments and 136 elective procedures had to be postponed because of the attack.
his means so far 4,913 acute outpatient appointments and 1,391 elective procedures and have been postponed at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust since 3 June.
Dr Chris Streather, medical director for NHS London, said: “I’m incredibly proud of how the NHS in London continues to work to minimise the impact on patients, with staff working hard to maintain patient safety and provide the high-quality care that we strive for across the capital.
“Although we are seeing significant progress, with most services operating near to normal, we continue to work tirelessly in partnership with our colleagues across London to ensure all services are back to being fully operational as quickly as possible.
“Last week, King’s College Hospital and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trusts had to deal with the added pressure of industrial action which put further demands on staff, so I would like to recognise the hard work of all their staff who put robust plans in place to maintain patient safety.
“The mutual aid agreements that have been put in place in primary care continue to show progress to meet urgent demand, with pathology services now operating at 54% of the capacity they had prior to the cyber attack – helping to increase the number of blood tests available in the most critical and urgent cases.”
