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 eleventh week of the attack (12th – 18th August), shows that across the two most affected trusts, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust 29 acute outpatient appointments and three elective procedures had to be postponed because of the attack.

This means so far 1,696 elective procedures and 10,083 acute outpatient appointments have been postponed at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust since 3 June.

Returning testing services to Synnovis
Synnovis has confirmed that they have successfully rebuilt their core IT systems. As a result, testing services for GP practices in Bexley, Lewisham and Greenwich returned to Synnovis on Thursday 15 August. This ‘repatriation’ has gone well so far, with services operating at pre-cyberattack levels and no significant issues reported.

Testing services for the remaining three south east London boroughs, Bromley, Lambeth and Southwark, will repatriate to Synnovis in the coming weeks.

Blood transfusion services
Full restoration of blood transfusion services remains planned for early autumn, meaning that mutual aid will continue to be required for planned operations and transplants to minimise the ongoing impact on patients.

Operational capacity in all laboratories overall compared with pre-cyber attack levels
Most systems are now fully restored, with various services back to running at pre-cyber attack levels, including the majority of blood sciences, tissue sciences and genetics. Infection Sciences are expected to be up to full capacity by the end of August. Plans are on track to restore blood transfusion services by the autumn.

Dr Jane Fryer, Deputy Medical Director for NHS London, said: 

“The fact that pathology services are now running at near normal levels at Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust means that very few outpatient appointments were postponed last week. We recognise the impact cancellations have on our patients and on our staff, who continue to work very hard in difficult circumstances. I would like to thank patients for their understanding in what has been a challenging time.”

Synnovis chief executive Mark Dollar said:

“I am pleased to report that GP services in three of the six boroughs we serve transferred back to Synnovis on 15 August, and everything went smoothly. Testing turnaround times are as they were pre-cyber attack, these GPs now have access to full testing services including routine/non-urgent requests, and the hub laboratory is operating effectively using end-to-end automation thanks to the successful restoration of core IT systems.

“There are plans to repatriate the remaining three boroughs (Southwark, Lambeth and Bromley) in controlled phases by mid-September. The majority of hospital services are now operating effectively, as they were before the cyber attack”.

Sam Hepplewhite, Director of Prevention and Partnerships, NHS South East London, said:

“We are pleased that the repatriation of testing services to Synnovis has gone well so far, but continue to monitor the situation carefully. We look forward to repatriating the other three boroughs soon. As ever, we thank our primary care colleagues, our partners and our mutual aid providers for their collaboration and support as we work through the ongoing effects of this cyberattack.”

 Call for O group donors continues

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.

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.
4. Patients waiting on blood tests are advised to keep an eye on Swiftqueue, the online booking service, as more appointments become available.

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 shows that for the week 12 – 18 August 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 three elective procedures were postponed (compared to 13 the week beginning 5 August). None of these were cancer treatments (compared to three last week).

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

Transplant impacts

No organs were diverted for use by other trusts

Maternity

No c-sections were postponed in the last week

Outpatients

29 outpatient appointments were postponed in the last week (compared to 53 for the week 5-11 August)

No community outpatient appointments have been postponed in the last week.

Laboratory blood testing capacity
South east London Synnovis laboratory blood testing capacity this week increased to 100 per cent capacity. We will now stop reporting on this figure in future weeks.

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 and King’s College Hospital 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 impacted and involved in the incident response.