Patients to attend booked outpatient appointments after '˜significant progress' made by hospitals trust

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United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust has said all patients should attend their booked outpatient appointments and operations '˜as planned tomorrow (Tuesday) after '˜significant progress' has been made in restoring IT systems following Friday's cyber attack.

The trust, which runs Boston, Lincoln and Grantham hospitals, says to attend ‘unless patients recieve a telephone call’ saying otherwise as some systems are still affected.

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A statement issued on social media said: “Patients who do attend for their appointments are asked to bear with our staff, as some imaging and results may not be immediately available and systems are running slowly in some areas.

“We are still in a major incident, so we would like to remind patients to use our A&Es wisely and only attend in life threatening or emergency situations.

“We would like to extend our thanks to our staff for the hard work they have done to ensure patient care has been prioritised during this difficult time, and to our patients for their understanding.”

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Patients have been asked to continue attending Accident and Emergency only if their condition is live threatening.

The cyber attack last week, which is known as WannaCry and demands Bitcoin payment in exhange for access to locked files, has affected 48 health organisations across England and Scotland, causing 16 to shut down their IT systems.

This also includes doctors’ surgeries.

Greyfriars Practice manager Karen Young told The Standard they had still had no computers.

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She said: “We were instructed by the CCG to turn all computers off on Friday afternoon.

“We are continuing to see oiur patients, we are limited in the services we are able to provide, however, we can confirm that yes, we have seen all those patients who need to be seen as clinical emergencies to date and will continue to do so until 8pm this evening.

“We are planning to continue as we have today but cannot confirm when our computers will be back working.”

Other surgeries have also posted statements confirming they have been affected on their websites.

The attack has also hit 150 countries around the world since Friday.