Almost all south east London NHS services back after Synnovis attack

NHS England reported on 4 October 2024 that the final stages of recovery from the cyber attack on pathology services provider Synnovis in June are almost complete, and that nearly all services are now up and running¹. The attack took place on 3 June¹.

The most affected trusts were King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. Across those trusts, 10,152 acute outpatient appointments and 1,710 elective procedures were postponed¹. Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, Bromley Healthcare and primary care services in south east London were also affected¹. NHS England said the services most affected were in south east London¹.

A final step was the reconnection of blood transfusion laboratory IT systems. During the outage the affected trusts could not carry out "cross-matching" for blood transfusions and had to use O-type blood, which is safe for all, and this contributed to a national shortage of O-type blood supplies¹. The trusts can now issue all blood group products for transfusions¹. NHS England said some important administrative work remains but that any further impact on patient care will be minimal¹. Testing services were recently returned to GPs across all south east London boroughs¹.

The amber alert for blood supplies remains in place, and new and existing O negative and Black heritage blood donors are still being urged to come forward and donate¹. NHS Blood and Transplant Director of Donor Experience Mark Chambers said rebuilding blood stocks will take some time¹.

Sam Hepplewhite, Director of Prevention and Partnerships at NHS South East London Integrated Care Board, apologised to people who have been affected and are still waiting to have their blood test undertaken, and said the board is working to reduce the backlog as soon as possible¹. The NHS and Synnovis provided weekly updates after the attack and set up a helpline for people affected¹.

Why it matters for households

Households in south east London are the most directly affected, particularly patients at Guy's and St Thomas' and King's College Hospital who had appointments or procedures postponed since 3 June¹. NHS England says nearly all services are now available again, and testing has returned to GPs across all boroughs, though some people are still waiting for blood tests and the local integrated care board says it is working to reduce that backlog¹. The amber alert for blood supplies remains in place, and NHS Blood and Transplant is urging new and existing O negative and Black heritage donors to come forward, with new donors directed to one of 25 NHS donor centres across towns and cities¹. The background to the incident is set out in our guide to the Synnovis ransomware incident and London NHS pathology, and practical questions about appointments, A&E and tests during an outage are covered in NHS appointments, A&E and tests during an IT outage.

What happens next

Synnovis says its first phase of restoration is complete, with work still ahead to restore remaining business administrative IT systems within the company¹. NHS England says some important administrative work remains at the trusts¹. The amber alert for blood supplies remains in place, and NHS Blood and Transplant is asking donors to book appointments in the coming weeks and months¹. How authorities respond to incidents of this kind is described in how the NHS, government and regulators respond to a major incident, part of our cyber-attacks hub.