A ransomware attack caused the hospital's system to stop working, making it impossible to perform blood transfusions or surgeries, leading to chaos in several London hospitals and the cancellation of scheduled deliveries.

A pathology service used by a hospital in London, UK, was rendered unavailable due to a cyberattack. The affected hospital is no longer able to perform surgeries or blood transfusions that require pathology services, and emergency patients with high urgency are being diverted to other hospitals that were not affected by the cyberattack.

Services disrupted as London hospitals hit by cyber-attack | NHS | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/04/cyber-attack-london-hospitals

On June 4, 2024, Synnovis , a healthcare services provider based in London, UK, announced that it had been hit by a ransomware attack that affected all of its IT systems and caused disruptions to many of its pathology services.

Synnovis explained that the cyberattack is also affecting hospitalized patients, and that some patients are already being transferred to other medical facilities where the problem is not occurring.

SYNNOVIS' STATEMENT ON THIS WEEK'S CYBERATTACK | Synnovis
https://www.synnovis.co.uk/news-and-press/synnovis-cyberattack

The National Health Service (NHS), the UK's national health service, is working with Synnovis to resolve the issue and released a statement on its official website on June 4th. According to the NHS, significant impacts have been experienced at Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospital NHS Foundation Trust , King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust , and primary care services in southeast London. Emergency care is available, and some medical procedures where emergency work is prioritized are being redirected to other medical institutions.

NHS England — London » NHS London statement on Synnovis ransomware cyber attack
https://www.england.nhs.uk/london/2024/06/04/nhs-london-statement-on-synnovis-ransomware-cyber-attack/

In addition, the NHS also released a statement on June 5th local time. An NHS spokesperson explained, 'The ransomware cyber attack on Synnovis continues to cause disruption to primary care services at Guy's and St. Thomas NHS Foundation Trust, King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and South East London. All emergency and ambulance services are operating as usual, and the majority of outpatient services are also operating as normal. Unfortunately, some surgeries and procedures that rely heavily on pathology services have been postponed, and some patients' blood draw appointments have been cancelled as blood tests are prioritised in the most urgent cases.'

NHS England — London » NHS London statement on Synnovis ransomware cyber attack
https://www.england.nhs.uk/london/2024/06/05/nhs-london-statement-on-synnovis-ransomware-cyber-attack-2/

According to British media The Guardian, Synnovis is a private company that analyzes blood, and the cyber attack has forced at least one hospital to postpone scheduled births or switch to planned Caesarean sections at a different hospital.

According to health workers who spoke to The Guardian, direct communication between the hospital and Synnovis' servers had been cut off at the time of writing, due to fears that the ransomware attack would spread to uninfected systems. Although Synnovis's labs are still functioning, communication with the labs is limited to paper-only analogue methods, forcing all but urgent blood tests to be cancelled or diverted to other services.

According to reports, Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust use Synnovis's pathology services to analyze blood, and Synnovis has received a total of £1.1 billion (about 220 billion yen) in fees for providing this service.

Ian Abs, CEO of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, sent an email to employees on June 3rd saying, 'Our pathology partner, Synnovis, experienced a major IT incident early on Tuesday morning. The incident is still ongoing and we are currently unable to connect to Synnovis' IT servers. This is having a significant impact on the delivery of our services, in particular blood transfusions.'

At the time of writing, it is unclear when Synnovis will be able to resolve the cyber attack.