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Patients denied blood test because of Russian cyberattack on NHS they may have to wait up to six months for a sample to be taken, the Guardian has learned.
Delays are so long that some patients have decided to pay to have their blood drawn and analyzed at a private clinic rather than remain on the NHS waiting list.
Hospitals in south-east London affected by hacking group seizure 300 million pieces of NHS data have written to patients to warn them that they are now unable to provide their blood test.
One patient was told by letter: “Unfortunately it looks like it may be three to six months before blood can be drawn again. You will be placed on a waiting list and our secretaries will contact you when blood can be drawn again.
“If you have not heard anything in the next four months, please do not hesitate to contact us on the details above. I want to apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate that this will be disappointing.”
The patient, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “I don’t have many options other than to go alone to get the tests and the necessary treatment. The cost will be significant. Although I can afford this, most people could not.”
Nine NHS emergency or specialist hospitals, as well as mental health, community health and general practice providers across south-east London, serving 2 million people, have had to strictly limit blood tests from Russia-based Qilin the ransomware gang’s attack began on June 3.
Limited capacity means that only blood tests deemed ‘urgent’ by a committee of doctors and managers are carried out in the short term.
What the NHS called “significant disruption” caused by the attack also forced King’s College Health (KCH) and Guy’s and St Thomas (GSTT) trusts to canceled 1134 scheduled operations and 2,194 outpatient visits in the first 13 days. These included 184 cancer procedures and 64 organ transplants.
Qilin unleashed its attack on Synnovis, a provider of pathology services – such as blood tests and transfusions – which is jointly owned by KCH and GSTT and private company Synlab. As a result, affected hospitals and GP practices can only do about 30% of their normal number of blood tests.
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The Guardian reported on Friday that the UK government is considering using the National Crime Agency (NCA) to hit back at Qilin after some of the stolen data was published online. Qilin reportedly wanted a ransom of $50m (£40m).
In February, the NCA deployed a specialist team to take action against LockBit, another gang of Russian hackers. Tools like Qilin and LockBit typically infiltrate an organization’s IT system and prevent them from using it unless they pay a ransom to regain access.
NHS England’s London region, which co-ordinated the service’s response to the hack, declined to comment on patients facing a six-month wait for their blood test to be reordered.
However, in a question and answer statement on Friday admitted that the hack would continue to cause major problems for Synnovis and the NHS in the coming months. Synnovis has “plans to begin restoring some functionality in its IT system in the coming weeks,” it said. The cyber attack has effectively locked him out of his own IT system.
“Full technical recovery will take some time and the need to rebook tests and meetings will mean some disruption from the cyber incident will be felt in the coming months,” it said.
The NHS discovered a helpline to respond to inquiries from patients.
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