NHS warns of growing paperwork backlog after cyberattack
Some services are only now beginning to recover from the ransomware attack on 4th August
Doctors have warned it could take months to process the growing piles of paper medical records caused by the cyber attack on NHS supplier Advanced.
The incident, which Advanced discovered on 4th August, has directly or indirectly impacted many customer services. In the NHS, impacted services include Adastra, Carenotes, Caresys, Crosscare, Odyssey, Staffplan and eFinancials.
Advanced provides 85% of services used by NHS 111. For example, Adastra alone is used for services including ambulance dispatch, scheduling after-hours appointments, and issuing emergency prescriptions.
The public's health and safety in the UK depend on all of these activities.
Advanced has hinted that it could take several weeks to restore certain services to normal. In the meantime, doctors have had to switch to pen and paper records for certain procedures, and some patients are facing major delays
Dr Fay Wilson, who oversees an urgent care facility in the West Midlands, told the BBC that patient records are the biggest challenge for her staff.
She said they can't send notifications to GP practices "except by methods that don't work because they require a lot of manual handling."
Dr Wilson added that the service disruption was also creating a nighttime backlog.
"Three times in the last two weeks I have had to say we are now on 'escalation', which means we can't do any home visits overnight and they will have to be delayed until the morning."
She said every in-person visit in her area had to be manually documented using a pen and paper.
Depending on the day of the week, images of handwritten notes on different- coloured pieces of paper now have to be emailed from hospitals and offices - though Dr. Wilson says staff are adjusting well and volunteering to work extra time (we wonder if the staff have even noticed the extra hours, seeing as the post-2010 NHS appears to run on overtime - Ed.).
However, she cautions that it might take six months to review and enter a rising backlog of possibly several hundred thousand patient records, once Adastra is operational again.
Advanced is working to fix the software issues, and NHS 111 service providers have been coming back online since the 22nd August.
Patients have been reporting how the cyber attack is impacting their treatment.
A woman from Oxfordshire named Jennie claims that during a meeting, the doctor treating her teenage son for mental health issues said the hack had prevented her from seeing any of his medical records.
"During the conversation it became clear the clinician I was talking to had no access to his notes," she said.
It is still unknown which cybercrime group attacked Advanced.
After the incident, the attackers reportedly made "some demands," but details are not available. The company remained mum about any ransom payments.
A number of government agencies, including the National Crime Agency and GCHQ, are working together to determine the level of damage the attack may have caused.
Advanced is receiving assistance from the National Cyber Security Centre in its recovery.