NHS England London has released its latest weekly data update on the clinical impact of the ransomware cyber attack against Synnovis on Monday 3 June.

In response to the attack, NHS England London declared a regional incident and continues to coordinate work across affected services, as well as with neighbouring providers and national partners to manage disruption.

Urgent and emergency services have remained available as usual, and 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 phone.

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.

The data for the fifth week of reporting (1-7 July) shows 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 attack.

This means so far 6,199 acute outpatient appointments and 1,491 elective procedures have been postponed at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust since 3 June.

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.

“This is still having a significant impact on patients, and I understand it is distressing when a procedure is postponed. Across the capital we continue to work with our NHS colleagues to provide mutual aid to ensure minimal disruption to people’s care, especially in South East London. Working in partnership, NHS organisations across London are developing plans for the restoration of services.”

The incident means hospitals are using more of the universal blood types – O Negative and O positive – than normal. This is having an impact on national blood stocks.

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. You can visit blood.co.uk or call 0300 123 23 23 to book an appointment.

Cyber investigations of this type are complex and can take time. As more detail becomes available through Synnovis’ full investigation, the NHS will continue to provide updates and a helpline has been set up to support people impacted (incident helpline: 0345 8778967).

More details on the incident, including a questions and answers section, are available on the NHS England website.

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 update shows that for the week 1 – 7 July 2024.

The next update will be Thursday 18 July.

Planned care (day case and inpatient treatments)

Across Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts there have been:

1.  100 elective procedures postponed (compared to 136 cancellations last week).
2.  5 of these were cancer treatments (compared to 13 for w/c 24th June previously)

It is too early to understand the impact on 62-day performance and or Faster Diagnosis Standard for the affected trusts.

Transplant impacts

30 organs were diverted for use by other Trusts (compared to 29 last week).

Maternity

Across Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts:

Zero planned C-sections have been postponed/rescheduled in the last week (compared to zero the week before).

Outpatients

Across Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts there have been:

1.  1,286 hospital outpatient appointments were postponed in the last week (compared to 1,517 w/c 24 June)
2.  148 community outpatient appointments have been postponed in the last week (compared to 127 w/c 24 June)

Blood tests

South East London pathology services provided this week have remained the same – approximately 54% of normal capacity.

Primary care

Primary care appointments are going ahead as normal, however blood tests are being prioritised.

Impact on services and tests has varied however 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 (a diagnosis and study of the tissues which are used to diagnose infections, cancer and other diseases) and cervical smears.

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, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and South London and Maudsley 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 significantly impacted and involved in the incident response.

Previous weekly data figures can be found on the NHS England website.