Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS trust declares major incident after cyberattack

Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust declared a major incident in late November 2024 after detecting suspicious activity on its network and isolating systems as a precaution.

The trust runs Arrowe Park Hospital, Clatterbridge Hospital and Wirral Women and Children's Hospital, along with services at two health centres in Merseyside. It cancelled outpatient appointments and asked the public to attend hospital only in a genuine emergency. Staff moved to paper rather than digital records in the affected areas while IT systems were offline, and emergency departments warned that waits would be longer than usual.

The trust said it was operating under its business continuity procedures, would work closely with national cyber security services and would contact patients to rearrange postponed appointments. It initially stated that maternity services were running normally, wording that was later removed from its updates, according to The Register. A member of staff quoted by The Record said there was no access to records or results because everything was done electronically.

The trust did not say what kind of attack it had experienced, and no group publicly claimed responsibility in the days after the declaration. The incident came months after the Synnovis ransomware attack that disrupted London hospitals and was one of several cyber incidents affecting NHS organisations in England that autumn.