A cyber attack on London hospitals has resulted in the postponement of more than 1,000 NHS surgeries

More than 1,000 elective surgeries and more than 3,000 outpatient appointments have been postponed due to continued disruption caused by the cyber attack that has hit London hospitals.

Synnovis, an agency that manages laboratories for NHS trusts and GPs in south-east London, was the victim of a data hack on 3 June.

New NHS England figures show that 3,396 appointments and 1,255 elective procedures have been postponed since then.

In a statement, the directors of the two trusts affected said they continued to treat the attack as a “critical incident”.

Figures published on Thursday showed that between June 17 and 23, the two hardest-hit trusts – King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust – resulted in the postponement of 1,300 outpatient appointments and 205 elective procedures.

In a joint statement, Julie Lowe, deputy chief executive of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and Dr Simon Steddon, medical director at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, said: ‘We are having to postpone a number of surgeries and appointments at this time and would like to apologize again to patients who were affected.

“Staff continue to do great work in very difficult circumstances and they deserve huge credit.”

Last week, the BBC reported that the criminal gang behind the cyberattack had published stolen sensitive patient data in an attempt to extort money from Synnovis.

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