NHS 111 cyber attack backlog may take six months to fix

THE NHS 111 cyber attack could leave a six-month backlog in patient records, doctors have warned.

Advanced, which supplies software to 85 per cent of NHS 111 services, was subjected to a ransomware attack almost four weeks ago.

The majority of services still have no access to the platform, known as Adastra, which allows GPS to see patients’ medical records during urgent and outof-hours consultations.

Dr Fay Wilson, member of the British Medical Association’s GP committee and an urgent care centre manager in the West Midlands, has warned staff are still working with pen and paper, which is badly affecting patient care.

“We can’t send notifications to GP practices, except by methods that don’t work because they require a lot of manual handling, and we haven’t got the staff to actually do the manual handling,” she told the BBC.

Handwritten notes now have to be emailed from hospitals and GP practices to ensure staff have access to patient information, Dr Wilson explained.

She estimates it could take a week for every day the system is down – more than six months – to process and upload the backlog of patient records when the system comes back online. There are already “a few hundred thousand” records to update, she said.

Dr Wilson explained they may start with the most recent records as they are “likely to be the most useful”.

“It could be done faster but this depends on extra staff to do the inputting with clinical oversight to ensure clinical detail is correctly entered on to the system from handwritten notes,” she said.

How quickly they can update the records “depends on whether the NHS

‘It could be done faster but this depends on extra staff to do the inputting with clinical oversight’

has any money to pay the staff to work the hours needed to deliver it”, she claimed. “If not, we will be doing this in our spare time.”

Advanced confirmed that the London and South Central Ambulance Services are both reconnected to the system, and other users will be brought back online on a rolling basis.

An NHS spokesman told the BBC that contingency plans were in place and that “the use of electronic records is a small – but important – aspect of diagnosing and treating patients.”