Update on cyber incident: clinical impact in south east London – Friday 13 September 2024

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

The data for the fourteenth week after the attack (2 – 8 September) shows that across the two most affected trusts, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, 11 acute outpatient appointments and two elective procedures had to be postponed because of the attack.

This means so far 10,140 acute outpatient appointments and 1,704 elective procedures have been postponed at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

NHS London Medical Director, Dr Chris Streather, said: “Our thanks go once again to our hardworking, dedicated staff, both at the directly affected trusts and the wider NHS and partners across south east London and beyond. It has taken more than three months, but we are now seeing much lower numbers of cancelled and rescheduled appointments at our two most affected trusts, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

“We are working to fully restore blood transfusion services and in the meantime we will continue to make of use of mutual aid arrangements for planned operations and transplants in order to maintain these vital services. The repatriation of testing services for GPs back to Synnovis continues to progress and South East London ICB look forward to repatriating services for all boroughs as soon as possible.”

Synnovis CEO, Mark Dollar, said: “GPs based in Southwark and Lambeth boroughs will be transferring back to Synnovis on 12 September, giving them access once again to our full repertoire of medical diagnostic services. The last of six GP boroughs to repatriate is Bromley, which we plan to transfer back by the end of September. I am pleased to report that services in our new hub laboratory continue to operate efficiently and effectively for GPs who have already returned to Synnovis.

“The majority of hospital services are now operating as they were before the cyberattack, although some of our processes are still being conducted manually while we rebuild digital interfaces. We continue to make good, steady progress in delivering our restoration plan and, once again, I would like to thank patients, clinicians and other service users for their understanding, support and patience throughout.”

Sam Hepplewhite, Director of Prevention and Partnerships, NHS South East London Integrated Care Board, said: “We are pleased that services for primary care in Lambeth and Southwark are now returning to Synnovis. We look forward to being able to transfer the remaining borough, Bromley, and blood transfusion services in the near future. As ever, we thank colleagues in primary care, and our many mutual aid providers, for their support and patience during this very difficult time.”

Call for O group donors continues

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 next update will be on Thursday 19 September.

Planned care (day case and inpatient treatments)

Across King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust two elective procedures were postponed (there were also two cancellations in the week beginning 26 August). None of these were cancer treatments.

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

Eleven outpatient appointments were postponed in the last week (compared to 21 last week)

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

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 continue to be affected and involved in the incident response.