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 fifteenth week after the attack (9-15 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, six acute outpatient appointments and one elective procedure had to be postponed because of the attack.

This means so far 10,146 acute outpatient appointments and 1,705 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 Jane Fryer said: “We are now seeing consistently low numbers of appointments and procedures being cancelled and postponed, which is a testament to the hard work of staff over the last few months – not only at the most affected trusts but across the NHS. Mutual aid arrangements have enabled us to maintain planned operations and transplants for our patients across south east London.

“Testing services have been returned to GPs across all south east London boroughs and we are working hard to fully restore blood transfusion services in the next few weeks.”

Almost all of Synnovis’ services for GPs and hospitals are now operating at full capacity. Some manual processes remain while Synnovis restores the IT systems that provide the electronic link between laboratories and their service users. Plans are underway to resume the important programme to transform pathology services for patients across south east London, which was paused in June immediately following the cyber attack. 

Synnovis CEO Mark Dollar said: “GPs based in Southwark, Lambeth and Bromley successfully transferred back to Synnovis this week, giving all our GP users access to our full repertoire of medical diagnostic services once again. I am pleased to report that these final transfers went smoothly and that GP services in our new hub laboratory continue to operate efficiently and effectively.

“The majority of hospital services are now operating as they were before the cyber attack, 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.” 

Call for O group donors continues

O negative and O positive donors are still asked to urgently book 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:

• 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.
• Continue to use NHS 111 through the NHS App, online or on the phone for non-urgent care.
• 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.
• 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 (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 26 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, one elective procedure was postponed (there were two cancellations in the week beginning 2 September). None of these were cancer treatments.

Transplant impacts

No organs were diverted for use by other trusts

Maternity

No c-sections were postponed in the last week

Outpatients

Six outpatient appointments were postponed in the last week (compared to 11 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.