NHS England London published its fifth weekly data update on 11 July 2024 covering the clinical impact of the ransomware cyber attack against Synnovis on Monday 3 June1. The figures for the week 1 to 7 July show that across the two most affected trusts, King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, 1,286 acute outpatient appointments and 100 elective procedures had to be postponed because of the attack1.
Since 3 June, 6,199 acute outpatient appointments and 1,491 elective procedures have been postponed at the two trusts1. The update also reports 148 community outpatient appointments postponed in the last week, compared with 127 in the week commencing 24 June, and 1,286 hospital outpatient appointments postponed, compared with 1,517 in the week commencing 24 June1. Five of the 100 postponed elective procedures were cancer treatments, compared with 13 for the week commencing 24 June1. Thirty organs were diverted for use by other trusts, compared with 29 the week before, and no planned C-sections were postponed or rescheduled in the last week, as in the week before1.
South East London pathology services provided this week remained at approximately 54% of normal capacity1. Primary care appointments are going ahead as normal, however blood tests are being prioritised, and GP referrals have been significantly impacted with the most important referrals being accepted for Blood Sciences (haematology, biochemistry, immunology, virology); normal services are operating for histology and cervical smears1. Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts 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 significantly impacted and involved in the incident response1.
Dr Chris Streather, Medical Director for NHS London, said:
"We are starting to see a reduction in the number of acute outpatient appointments and elective procedures being postponed, with 136 elective procedures postponed last week compared to 814 in the first week of the cyber attack."
The incident means hospitals are using more of the universal blood types, O Negative and O positive, than normal, which is having an impact on national blood stocks1. NHS Blood and Transplant has called out to O Positive and O Negative blood donors to urgently book appointments to donate in one of the 25 town and city centre NHS Blood Donor Centres in England, to boost stocks of O type blood following the cyber incident; appointments can be booked at blood.co.uk or by calling 0300 123 23 231.
Why it matters for households
The disruption is concentrated in south east London, where the three trusts named remain in a critical incident and other providers and primary care services continue to be significantly affected1. NHS England London says urgent and emergency services have remained available as usual, and that patients should access services in the normal way by dialling 999 in an emergency and otherwise use NHS 111 through the NHS App, online or on the phone1. Patients will be kept informed about any changes to their treatment by the NHS organisation caring for them, through the usual contact routes including texts, phone calls and letters1. A helpline has been set up to support people impacted, on 0345 87789671. The background to the attack and how appointments, A&E and tests are affected during an IT outage are set out in the guides on the Synnovis ransomware incident and London NHS pathology and on NHS appointments, A&E and tests during an IT outage; how the NHS, government and regulators respond to a major incident is covered separately.
What happens next
NHS England says updates will be provided on a weekly basis as the incident continues, and that the next update will be Thursday 18 July1. It says cyber investigations of this type are complex and can take time, and that as more detail becomes available through Synnovis' full investigation the NHS will continue to provide updates1. The figures are drawn from unvalidated management information provided in the interests of transparency, and it is too early to understand the impact on 62-day performance or the Faster Diagnosis Standard for the affected trusts1.
Synnovis Ransomware and NHS Labs
NHS Services During an IT Outage
How Services Respond
