NHS hospitals grappling with blood shortage following a ransomware attack on Synnovis

Several major NHS hospitals in London reported shortage of blood supply following a significant data security incident at pathology services provider Synnovis.

 

The development follows the London-based pathology services provider announcing that it was a victim of a ransomware attack on June 3 that affected all of its IT systems.

 

The ransomware attack affected several NHS hospitals, including Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and other primary care providers across southeast London.

 

In a recent announcement, NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) said that several hospitals are facing severe blood shortage due to the cyber attack on Synnovis as hospitals cannot currently match patients’ blood at normal frequency.

 

“For surgeries and procedures requiring blood to take place, hospitals need to use O type blood as this is safe to use for all patients and blood has a shelf life of 35 days, so stocks need to be continually replenished,” reads the announcement.

 

NHSBT has urged blood donors to come forward and donate O Positive and O Negative blood.

 

“England’s top doctor has today (Monday 10 June) backed calls from NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) for O Positive and O Negative blood donors to urgently book appointments to donate in one of the 25 town and city centre NHS Blood Donor Centres in England, to boost stocks of O type blood following the cyber incident in London.

 

“There are around 13,000 appointments available nationally this week in NHS Blood Donor Centres with 3,400 available in London alone,” NHSBT added.

 

Last week, Ciaran Martin, the former CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre, revealed that the Qilin ransomware group was behind the cyber attack on Synnovis.

 

In an interview with BBC Radio 4, Martin said, “We believe it is a Russian group of cyber criminals who call themselves Qilin.

 

“They’re simply looking for money. It’s unlikely they would have known that they would have caused such serious primary healthcare disruption when they set out to attack the company,” he said.