NHS London still suffering effects of ransomware attack.
More than 1,500 operations and appointments have been cancelled following the ransomware attack on 3rd June.
In a new statement released at the end of last week, NHS England said that King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust were affected most, with more than 800 planned operations and 700 outpatient appointments needing to be rearranged.
Following the attack on Synnovis - a pathology laboratory which processes blood tests on behalf of a number of NHS organisations, primarily in south east London - NHS England London has been coordinating work across affected services, as well as with neighbouring providers and national partners, in order to manage disruption.
Meanwhile Synnovis is focused on the technical recovery of the system, with plans in place to begin restoring some functionality in its IT system in the weeks to come.
Dr Chris Streather, medical director for NHS London, said: “There is no doubt the ransomware cyber attack on Synnovis is having a significant impact on services in south east London, with hundreds of appointments and procedures being postponed.
“While staff are working round the clock to mitigate the impact and Synnovis is working to recover its IT system, we expect disruption to be felt for some time.
Many spokespeople apologised for the disruption and the impact on patients. Professor Ian Abbs, Chief Executive of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The cyber attack has had a significant impact on our services, and this is likely to remain the case for some time yet.”
Written by
Dan Raywood
Senior Editor
SC Media UK
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with more than 20 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 16 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Conference, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and ESET Security Days.
Outside work, Dan enjoys supporting Tottenham Hotspur, managing mischievous cats, and sampling craft beers.
