Thousands of appointments and treatments at London NHS hospitals postponed after cyberattack

Authorities said more than 6,000 appointments and procedures were postponed at major London hospitals following a cyberattack last month.

Some 4,913 outpatient appointments and 1,391 planned procedures have been postponed at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust since the attack on 3 June, NHS England said.

Some 1,517 urgent outpatient appointments and 136 elective procedures were postponed between June 24 and June 30 because of the attack at the two worst-hit hospitals, the NHS said.

Officials said most services were operating “almost normally” and they hoped that “full services could be provided as soon as possible.”

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But pathology services were operating at 54 percent of the capacity they had before the cyberattack. Urgent and emergency services remained available as usual.

On June 3, cybercriminals targeted pathology provider Synnovis with a ransomware attack. Last week, NHS England confirmed that data stolen in the attack had been published online.

According to the BBC, Russian cyber gang Qilin has released almost 400GB of data on its darknet site and Telegram channel, including patient names, dates of birth, NHS numbers and blood test descriptions.