Cyberattack leaves London NHS hospitals in need of O-type blood donors

The NHS has appealed for O-type blood donors to come forward as soon as possible – amid the fallout from the cyber attack which hit major London hospitals.

Operations and tests had to be cancelled, with a major impact on key services like blood transfusions.

The affected hospitals say they’re unable to match patients’ blood as quickly as usual.

Our health and social care editor Victoria Macdonald has more.

Victoria Macdonald: The fallout from this ransomware cyberattack continues and it is affecting major hospitals, Guy’s and St Thomas’, the Evelina Children’s Hospital, the Royal Brompton, where they do heart transplants and heart surgery in King’s College in southeast London, as well as vast swathes of primary care GP services across southeast London. Now, there was a call out for blood donors and trainee doctors to come and help out. One GP told us that it actually reminded them of the fallout from Covid because of the delayed diagnoses. This was an attack, it’s thought from Russia, though not state-sponsored, on Synnovis, which runs pathology services for the trusts and primary care in southeast London. I spoke to them today, this attack happened last Monday, but they said as yet there was no update.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: So how long do they think it will take to get back to normal?

Victoria Macdonald: Five to six weeks, though that is better than the ten weeks one trust told their staff. But the impact is enormous. Take heart surgery, operations were cancelled on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. At one hospital, they did two on Friday and two on Monday, far less than the normal. And the fact is they can’t guarantee transfusible blood. So some patients are having to be transferred to neighbouring hospitals. And one doctor I spoke to said quite simply that it is just wicked what has happened. We are also being told that cancer treatments and maternity services are also being affected.