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At least four NHS hospitals in London have been hit by a cyber attack, leading them to cancel operations and other procedures on Tuesday.
A “major IT incident” has impacted the pathology department of at least two hospital trusts, with some patients seeing appointments cancelled and others being redirected to other health providers in the city.
King’s College Hospital confirmed the trust had been impacted by a cyber attack, while Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, which runs three sites, including the Evelina London Children’s Hospital, has also been affected.
The incident relates to the health service’s pathology partner Synnovis, which has left hospitals disconnected from the provider’s IT servers and delayed the delivery of blood transfusions. Synnovis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This could lead to issues for emergency departments that rely on quick blood test results.
An email sent to NHS staff by the chief executive of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, which was obtained by the Sunday Times, said: “This is having a major impact on the delivery of our services, with blood transfusions being particularly affected.”
He added: “Some activity has already been cancelled or redirected to other providers at short notice as we prioritise the clinical work that we are able to safely carry out.”
The NHS has been hit by significant ransomware attacks over the past decade. In 2017, the “WannaCry” attack is estimated to have cost the NHS £92mn and caused the cancellation of 19,000 patient appointments.
Another hack, in 2022, took down the non-emergency 111 service and disrupted management systems for mental health services and emergency prescriptions.
Last year, the UK government announced a strategy for strengthening cyber security in healthcare, which includes identifying parts of the healthcare system where a cyber attack would cause the most harm to patients.
The Department of Health and Social Care did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is a developing story