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.

The data for the eighth week after the attack (22-28 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, 1,074 acute outpatient appointments and 52 elective procedures had to be postponed because of the attack.

This means so far 9,423 acute outpatient appointments and 1,660 elective procedures have been postponed at the two NHS trusts since 3 June.

Progress on rebuilding systems

More than 60 core IT systems used within laboratories are being, or have been, entirely rebuilt and Synnovis has now completed full restoration of many of these. Final checks and assurances are being made to reconnect laboratory systems with those in use by hospitals, GPs and other service users.

The full electronic end-to-end IT solution for services at the Synnovis hub laboratory has been restored and tested, meaning that the laboratory is able to start increasing capacity and efficiency with immediate effect for primary and community care services.

The technical progress made means that primary and community care services can soon begin to transfer back to Synnovis gradually, safely and sustainably on a borough-by-borough basis, with the first transfer planned for early August.

Following transfer, service users will have access to the same full testing service as before the cyber attack, including routine testing. In the meantime, previously announced mutual aid arrangements remain in place for primary and community care, and continue to provide access to core non-routine tests.

Blood transfusion services remain a core area of focus, with full restoration anticipated by early autumn. This timeline means that mutual aid (where health services help each other by taking patients or providing services) will continue to be required for planned operations and transplants to minimise the ongoing impact on patients. More appointments for blood tests are available and the NHS is encouraging people to make appointments where needed.

Dr Chris Streather, Medical Director for NHS London, said: 

“Synnovis has continued to make good progress in rebuilding its systems and capacity is now steadily increasing for routine blood tests, with more and more activity able to move back from paper-based workarounds to more efficient IT systems.

“Though this progress is extremely welcome, we recognise the impact cancellations have on our patients and also on our staff, who continue to work very hard in difficult circumstances. The key area we are focused on remains blood transfusion services – with services not expected to be fully restored until the autumn, we are continuing to bring hospitals across London together to manage cases and help each other by taking patients where needed.

“With most services working at near-normal levels, including in outpatients, day cases and non-elective care, it’s important that patients with booked appointments continue to attend unless they have been contacted to say otherwise.

“We also urge people in London to support the ongoing call for O group blood donors to come forward and help boost stocks to help people needing treatment.’

Call for O group donors

Demand for O type blood from hospitals has increased due to both the cyber attack and a reduction in donations during the summer period.

O negative and O positive donors are still asked to urgently book and fill appointments at donor centres. People can visit blood.co.uk or call 0300 123 23 23 to book an appointment.

More information is available at: NHS calls national blood shortage amber alert – NHS Blood and Transplant (nhsbt.nhs.uk)

Advice for the public

NHS organisations across London continue to work in partnership to ensure people receive the critical and urgent care they need, when they need it. Advice to the public remains:

1. Continue to attend booked appointments unless contacted to say otherwise. Patients will be kept informed about any changes to their treatment by the NHS organisation caring for them. This will be through the usual contact routes including texts, phone calls and letters.
2. Continue to use NHS 111 through the NHS App, online or on the phone for non-urgent care.
3. 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.

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). More details on the incident, including a questions and answers section, are also available on the NHS England website: https://www.england.nhs.uk/synnovis-cyber-incident

Background

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 22 – 28 July 2024. 

Planned care (day case and inpatient treatments)

Across Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts there have been:

• 52 elective procedures postponed (A figure of 46 cancellations was provided for the week commencing 15th July).
• 2 of these were cancer treatments (compared to 4 for w/c 15th July previously)

It is too early to understand the impact on 62-day performance and or Faster Diagnosis Standard for the affected trusts

Transplant impacts

1 organ was diverted for use by other trusts (compared to 20 last week).

Maternity

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

Zero planned C-sections have been postponed/rescheduled in the last week (compared to zero the week before).

Outpatients:

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

1,074 hospital outpatient appointments were postponed in the last week (compared to 1,122 week 15-21 July)

28 community outpatient appointments have been postponed in the last week (compared to 34 last week).

Blood tests
South east London pathology services provided this week increased to 67% of normal capacity.

Primary care
Primary care appointments are going ahead as normal, however blood tests are being prioritised based on clinical need.

Following the introduction of mutual aid arrangements, under which pathology services are temporarily being supplied to primary care users by other providers, all GP practices now have access to testing services for patients needing non-routine tests.

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.