Hospitals in London have had to cancel cancer operations this week because of a Russian cyber-attack that continues to cause serious disruption to NHS services in the capital. St Thomas’ and King’s College hospitals have postponed procedures that their surgeons were due to perform on cancer patients since the attack began last Monday, the Guardian can reveal. They have been forced to take the step because the hack meant they would not have been able to provide a blood transfusion for any patient who needed one.
Russian hackers, thought to be the Qilin group , launched a ransomware attack on Synnovis, which supplies blood tests to St Thomas’, King’s and other hospitals in south-east London. One senior NHS manager told the Health Service Journal (HSJ) that the attack, one of the biggest to hit the service, was “everyone’s worst nightmare”. NHS England has released few details of the impact of the cyber-attack, despite the fact that it continues to cause major disruption for six NHS trusts and dozens of GP practices in south-east London that between them provide care to about 2 million people.
It refused on Friday to say how many operations, including cancer and transplant surgeries, had been put off this week as a result of the attack. Officials maintained that they did not have figures for the number of operations affected, even though managers in the hospitals involved have had to explain to patients why their procedures have been delayed. In a statement on Thur.
