Critical incident declared as cyber attack affects major London hospitals

Major hospitals in London have declared a critical incident after a cyber attack led to operations being cancelled and patients being diverted elsewhere for care.

Health service leaders said there has been a “significant impact” King’s College Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ and GP services in south east London. Vanessa Welham, from Streatham in south-west London, said that her husband’s blood test at Gracefield Gardens health centre was cancelled on Monday evening and he was informed that local centres were not taking bookings for an “indefinite period of time”.

“This is having a significant impact on the delivery of services at Guy’s and St Thomas’, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts and primary care services in south-east London, and we apologise for the inconvenience this is causing to patients and their families. Synnovis chief executive Mark Dollar confirmed the company had been victim of a ransomware cyberattack, adding: “This has affected all Synnovis IT systems, resulting in interruptions to many of our pathology services.

“We take cyber security very seriously at Synnovis and have invested heavily in ensuring our IT arrangements are as safe as they possibly can be. This is a harsh reminder that this sort of attack can happen to anyone at any time and that, dispiritingly, the individuals behind it have no scruples about who their actions might affect.

As well as serving King’s and Guys’ and St Thomas’, the pathology service also caters for South London and Maudsley and Oxleas NHS Foundation Trusts and a number of GP practices, clinics and other community services across the boroughs of Southwark, Lambeth, Bromley, Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham. “We need to ensure that all public sector organisations have contingency plans in place to manage cyber attacks, that staff are regularly trained on risk and there is sufficient investment in software resilience.

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