London Hospital Hack Delayed More Than 800 Operations

Hundreds of planned medical operations and outpatient appointments at London hospitals were delayed last week, after a ransomware attack on a lab services provider that helps manage blood transfusions.

The attack resulted in delays to more than 800 scheduled procedures and more than 700 appointments, the UK’s National Health Service said in an update on Friday.

The figures for the first time quantify the impact on patients from the attack, which disrupted IT systems at pathology provider Synnovis on June 3.

Synnovis is a partnership between Synlab UK and two major hospital trusts, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. The fallout has primarily affected facilities managed by the two trusts, as well as primary care services in southeast London requesting blood tests.

Some 97 of the postponed procedures were cancer treatments, NHS England said. Organ transplants were also affected, with 18 organs being diverted to other hospital trusts, most of them kidneys.

Five planned C-sections were also rescheduled.

NHS England warned that the fallout could continue for months.

The ransomware attack on Synnovis’ systems is thought to have been conducted by Russian-speaking group Qilin, and has substantially slowed down blood tests and blood matching. That, in turn, has impacted blood supplies, with the NHS appealing to the public to consider donating blood. One hospital encouraged its own staff to donate. Clinicians have also resorted to paper records.

The NHS said on Friday that the hack had resulted in “a significant reduction in the number of tests which can be processed and reported back to clinical teams.”

Synnovis has yet to recover full access to its IT systems, with NHS England saying that the company has “plans in place to begin restoring some functionality in its IT system in the weeks to come.”

NHS England also warned the disruption would continue to impact services for the “coming months.”