SLaM still lacks electronic pathology requesting and reporting after Synnovis attack

SLaM backlog and workarounds

Internal emails warned clinicians at SLaM not to rely on blood results arriving on time. Critical results go by phone, while full reports arrive as paper or PDFs and are manually uploaded into patient records. Since the attack, no pathology reports for SLaM patients have been available in the London Care Record, the shared system used across the capital's NHS organisations, and normal service had not resumed.

SLaM estimated that entering 161,560 pathology reports into patient records had been delayed as of early January 2026. Staff had worked to maintain services using manual processes despite the disruption, the trust said. The trust said those workarounds carried risks of delay, transcription errors and patient misidentification. Its data recorded 122 patient safety incidents involving incorrect, unavailable or delayed pathology results as of January 2026. SLaM said it had not been possible to quantify the impact of delays on diagnosis or treatment. Professor Derek Tracy, the trust's chief medical officer, said the disruption "has been a challenge for staff and services" and credited its pathology team with mitigating risk.

Synnovis attack and recovery

SecurityWeek reported that Synnovis was hit on 3 June 2024. Synnovis is a partnership between King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and SYNLAB. SecurityWeek also reported that Qilin claimed responsibility on 20 June 2024 and that the group published roughly 400 gigabytes of data allegedly stolen from Synnovis.

The Record reported that information relating to nearly one million NHS patients may have been exposed, including individuals with cancer and sexually transmitted infections, and that many patients were not notified until late 2025. The Information Commissioner's Office said its investigation into the incident is ongoing. Synnovis said it rebuilt its infrastructure from scratch and restored all impacted services by late 2024. NHS England said 10,152 acute outpatient appointments and 1,710 elective procedures were postponed because of the attack. NHS South East London, the region's integrated care board, said most organisations affected by the attack were no longer experiencing ongoing disruption and that impacted IT infrastructure had been rebuilt. It said analysis of the incident is ongoing.

Patient harm

NHS data obtained by Bloomberg News recorded two cases of major harm, 11 of moderate harm and more than 120 of minor harm as a direct consequence of the cyberattack, across at least four London boroughs. The figures included primary care services in Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark. An NHS document reviewed by the outlet defined major harm as "long-term or permanent impact on physical, mental or social function or shortening of life-expectancy". It previously reported that blood-testing services dropped to 10% immediately after the attack. Saif Abed, a former NHS doctor and expert in cybersecurity and public health, said the numbers were "substantial" and showed a cyberattack can be "catastrophic and life-changing for people".

The Record reported that other trusts measured impact differently: Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust reported more than 11,000 cancelled appointments, while Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust recorded no harm. The figures are not directly comparable because organisations logged the incident differently. King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust recorded a patient death in which the cyberattack was considered a contributing factor, The Record reported. The trust said it was not possible to determine whether the attack directly affected the outcome, and that a delay in receiving a blood test result was among the contributing factors.