A crippling cyber-attack has severely impacted major hospitals in London, leading to the cancellation of operations and the diversion of emergency patients.

King’s College Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’, and Evelina London Children’s Hospital are among the affected institutions.

This attack has caused major disruptions to critical services, particularly blood transfusions and test results, significantly impairing service delivery. Some medical procedures have been cancelled or redirected to other NHS providers to ensure patient safety while the hospitals work to resolve the issue.

A spokesman for King’s College Hospital confirmed the cyber-attack, believed to have occurred on Monday, which disrupted connections to a main server. Senior sources suggest it was a ransomware attack, with some indicating that accessing pathology results could take "weeks, not days." There are increasing concerns that urgent and emergency care will be compromised due to the inability to quickly access essential blood test results.

Oseloka Obiora, CTO at RiverSafe, “There is a large importance for robust cybersecurity measures, especially in the healthcare sector. To enhance readiness, it is essential that security teams adopt robust network visibility to promptly identify and resolve vulnerabilities across systems, minimising the impact of cyber threats to vital infrastructure"