Published: 25th July 2024 - All information correct at time of publication.
On Monday 3 June, Synnovis – a pathology partnership between Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, King’s College Hospitals NHS Trust and SYNLAB – was the victim of a ransomware cyberattack, resulting in a major IT incident and a significant reduction in capacity to process samples.
Since the attack, every available resource has been dedicated to delivering largely manual interim solutions in parallel with the rebuild of over 60, interconnected IT systems and the phased restoration of service capacity. Thanks to the ongoing diligence of our colleagues and partners we have made significant progress and, while recovery is ongoing, are able to share the following updates.
Technical Recovery
We have now rebuilt substantial parts of our IT infrastructure, enabling more of our laboratories to reconnect to the systems that enable us to receive test orders and return results electronically. As a result, core chemistry and haematology services (including coagulation studies) have been restored at King’s College and Princess Royal University Hospitals. Restoration for Guy’s and St Thomas’, Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals is planned in the coming days. Whilst we continue to ask service users to manage testing requests carefully as we complete final systems checks, we expect to be able to increase the numbers and types of tests shortly. This is a significant step forward in services recovery and in the carefully phased and clinically safe approach to bringing all our systems back online.
Blood Transfusion services will continue to be stabilised over the summer, with full restoration anticipated by early Autumn. Planning is also underway, in conjunction with our Trust partners, Pathology Business Unit (PBU) and Integrated Care Board (ICB), on the phased repatriation of GP services to the Blackfriars hub laboratory by early autumn.
Investigation Progress
A taskforce of external IT experts continues to investigate the cyberattack on two fronts:
- Investigation into the method of attack. Due to the ongoing investigation and its sensitive nature, we cannot provide further details at this stage.
- Investigation into the data published by the criminals behind the cyberattack. Due to the format and partial nature of the published data, more needs to be done to determine if there are any aspects of it that relate to our employees or other impacted organisations and individuals.
Our technical experts and internal teams are working hard to verify more detail, however advisors have confirmed that investigations into incidents of this nature are complex and do take time.
We will provide updates as the investigation progresses, and should the investigation determine that personal or sensitive information was published, we will inform affected individuals in line with our obligations as a data controller.
In the interim, we continue to engage with law enforcement, the Information Commissioner, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and NHS England (NHSE).
We have made significant progress with our technical recovery and the carefully phased restoration of services. While digital connectivity has been re-established at many of our laboratories, this process is taking time due to the complexity and inter-related nature of our various IT systems.
Mark Dollar, Chief Executive Officer, Synnovis
The effort and commitment that our people and Trust partners have stood up in response to this malicious attack has been humbling. We are very aware of the impact this attack continues to have on patients and service users, and I can only apologise to those affected and thank them for their patience.
Notes to editors:
- Synnovis is a pathology partnership between Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College Hospitals NHS Trust, and SYNLAB, Europe’s largest provider of medical testing and diagnostics.
- The immediate impact is on patients using NHS services within the hospitals of the two Trust partners and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, as well as GP services across Bexley, Greenwich, Lewisham, Bromley, Southwark and Lambeth boroughs.
For all media queries relating to the cyber attack please contact:
Telephone : +44 (0) 20 3077 0549
Email: [email protected]
