Hospitals grapple with aftermath of cyber attack

London hospitals are still grappling with the aftermath of a cyber attack that has led to many hours of extra work for their staff.

A critical incident was declared on 4 June after the ransomware attack targeted the services provided by pathology firm Synnovis.

This cyber-attack is causing serious disruption for hospitals and GP surgeries in London will take “many months” to resolve, a senior NHS source has warned.

“It is unclear how long it will take for the services to get back to normal, but it is likely to take many months,” the well placed official said.

“Key to a return to normal will be clarity about how the hackers gained access to the system, how many records have been affected and whether these records are retrievable,” they added.

Six NHS trusts and scores of GP practices in south-east London, which serve 2 million patients, have been struggling to deliver many types of care normally to patients since Russian hackers infiltrated and rendered unusable the IT system of Synnovis, a private firm which analyses blood tests.