Patients’ safety fears as trust workers unable to access records, and outage results in “wrong” drug doses.
The devastating cyber attack affecting crucial NHS services has caused extensive consequences, and it could be a year before hospitals really recover, it has been reported.
The August ransomware attack on the health service, which halted ambulance dispatch and caused chaos with the 111 line was thought to be a short-lived issue which would be resolved quickly. But over a month later, hospitals have fallen into chaos with loss of important patient records on the system.
Cybersecurity disaster
The NHS has previously been accused of “sleepwalking into a cybersecurity disaster” as hackers continue to target the health service in brutal, ransomware attacks. Security, it has been said, is simply not strong enough, and will be taken advantage of until money is spent to resolve the issue.
A source told The Independent: “It’s total chaos… there have been incidents with drugs being given at the wrong dose to people who couldn’t check the dose.
“It’s a danger to staff as well. You don’t know who is at risk when you’re going out. You can’t write reports for the court such as Mental Health Act reports.”
Ross Brewer, Vice President and General Manager of EMEA & APJ for Security Optimisation Platform AttackIQ, believes cybersecurity is integral to keeping patients’ data out of the hands of hackers.
“Lives are being put at risk”
Speaking to Health Tech World, Ross Brewer, Vice President and General Manager of EMEA & APJ for Security Optimisation Platform AttackIQ, said: “Hackers know that healthcare organisations have a duty of care to their patients and if they can spend their budget on better health outcomes for their patients, they will often favour such investments over things like cybersecurity.
“Often healthcare providers are running legacy systems that are hard to or can’t be patched. They use medical systems that are provided by third parties that won’t allow their customers to install their own security tools on them.
“This creates a case for healthcare organisations needing more budget than other sectors.
He added: “Currently, budgets for cybersecurity only become available after a breach has happened.
“Healthcare boards and executives need to recognise the duty of care issue and provide greater dedicated funding as cyber incidents are impacting patient welfare and, in some cases, lives are being put at risk.”
GPs forced to resort to pen and paper
As previously reported by Health Tech World, GPs have revealed how they’re struggling to cope with piling-up work, as they have no choice but to turn to pen and paper while systems are infected.
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