NHS England London has released the latest data update on the clinical impact of the ransomware cyber attack against pathology services provider Synnovis on Monday 3 June.

NHS organisations across London continue to work in partnership to ensure people receive the critical and urgent care they need, when they need it. In response to the attack, NHS England London declared a regional incident and has been coordinating work across affected services, as well as with neighbouring providers and national partners to manage disruption.

Urgent and emergency services continue to be available to those who need emergency care and people should access services in the normal way by dialling 999 in an emergency.

People should continue to use NHS 111 through the NHS App, online or on the phone for non-urgent care – and should continue to attend booked appointments unless contacted to say otherwise.

The latest data (for the week ending 14 July) shows that across the two most affected trusts – King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust – 1,028 outpatient appointments and 71 elective procedures were rescheduled as a result of the attack.

This means that more than 7,000 outpatient appointments and over 1,500 elective procedures have been postponed at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust since the cyber attack on 3 June.

Dr Chris Streather, Medical Director for NHS London, said: “Thanks to the hard work and dedication of everyone involved in maintaining services affected by last month’s cyber attack on pathology services provider Synnovis, most services are now working at near-normal levels, including in outpatients, day cases and non-elective care.

“We are still seeing an impact on regular day attendances and elective inpatients, where some specialties are still having to postpone appointments. It is important that patients with booked appointments continue to attend unless they have been contacted to say otherwise.

“Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust have restarted their outpatient blood tests. While they are not yet back to full capacity, they are contacting patients to book a blood test appointment in order of clinical priority and as capacity increases. Blood testing services at GP practices in south east London are also continuing to improve, which is helping us care for the most critical and urgent cases.”

NHS Blood and Transplant are calling on O Positive and O Negative blood donors to urgently book appointments to donate in one of the 25 town and city centre NHS Blood Donor Centres in England, to boost stocks of O type blood following the cyber incident. Visit blood.co.uk or call 0300 123 23 23 to book an appointment.

NHS Blood and Transplant director of donor experience Mark Chambers said: “As a result of recent unprecedented activity – such as the cyber incident affecting a number of London hospitals and variable weather conditions which impact Sickle Cell patients, we are experiencing higher than usual pressures on maintaining stocks of O Negative – the universal blood type.

“We are working hard to encourage donors to book and keep appointments at our donor centres across the country. Giving blood is quick and easy and each donation saves up to three lives. If you are O Neg, please visit our wonderful teams at one of our 25 donor centres and please encourage your friends and family to do the same. If you’ve never given blood before, please make an appointment.”

As more detail becomes available through Synnovis’ full investigation, the NHS will continue to provide updates.

A helpline has been set up to support people affected (incident helpline: 0345 8778967.

 

Background

More details on the incident, including a questions and answers section, are available on the NHS England website:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/synnovis-cyber-incident

NHS London impact update based on provisional data reported by trusts and organisations involved. Please note all numbers quoted are drawn from unvalidated management information; these have been provided in the interests of transparency.

Updates will be provided on a weekly basis as the incident continues.

The update covers the week 8 – 14 July 2024.

 

Planned care (day case and inpatient treatments)

Across King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust:

• 71 elective procedures have been postponed
• Two of these were cancer treatments (compared to five last week)

It is too early to understand the impact on 62-day performance and/or the faster diagnosis standard for the affected trusts.

 

Transplant impacts

Twenty-six organs were diverted for use by other trusts (compared to 30 last week)

 

Maternity

No planned c-sections have been postponed or rescheduled in the last two weeks.

 

Outpatients

There have been 1,028 hospital outpatient appointments postponed in the last week, as well as 24 community outpatient appointments

 

Blood tests

South east London pathology services provided this week have remained the same, at around 54% of normal capacity.

 

Primary care

Primary care appointments are going ahead as normal, however blood tests are being prioritised for urgent cases.

Impact on services and tests has varied, however GP referrals have been significantly impacted with only urgent referrals being accepted for Blood Sciences (haematology, biochemistry, immunology, virology). Normal services are operating for histology (a diagnosis and study of the tissues which are used to diagnose infections, cancer and other diseases) and cervical smears.

 

Wider impact

Synnovis provides specialist tests for other hospitals in the country. However, the material service impact remains in south east London. Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust remain in a critical incident, while Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, Bromley Healthcare, and primary care services in south east London continues to be significantly impacted and involved in the incident response.