UPDATED: 3 GP surgeries on the Isle of Wight are facing continued disruption this week as a result of Friday’s national cyber attack, however, it has been confirmed that the Isle of Wight NHS Trust has avoided the virus.
Esplanade Surgery in Ryde and Medina Healthcare in both Newport and Wootton have experienced IT issues throughout the weekend and it is expected to be 2 or 3 days before the issues are resolved.
For Esplanade, patients with pre-booked routine appointments should attend the practice as normal; otherwise they will be accepting urgent appointments only. Medina Healthcare is only accepting urgent appointments.
Patients who have immediate concerns about their health should contact the practices for an urgent appointment or contact the 111 service for advice. Patients can also see their local pharmacist.
Speaking with regards to the national picture Dr Anne Rainsberry, NHS Incident Director, has said:
“The NHS has continued to treat patients throughout the weekend. We have been working with 47 organisations providing urgent and emergency care who have been infected to varying degrees. Most have found ways of working around this but seven, including St Barts in London, have asked for extra support.
“If you have a hospital appointment you should still attend unless you are contacted and told not to.
“We have also been offering advice and assistance to GP surgeries, who will open as usual tomorrow. Again, if you have an appointment you should still attend unless contacted and told not to.
Article continues below this advertisement “People should continue to use the NHS wisely and remember that they can seek help and advice from a range of other sources, such as pharmacies and NHS 111.
“Bearing in mind the impact of the global cyber attack I would urge people to be patient with staff.”
UPDATE TUESDAY – Medina Healthcare is continuing to provide a normal service for patients across their 2 sites, according to the Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group. There are engineers currently on site at Medina’s Newport and Wootton sites working to fully restore their IT functionality. It is anticipated that the work will be complete by Wednesday morning at the latest.
Engineers are also at Esplanade Surgery in Ryde and they too are providing a normal service.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) is advising the public and organisations to help reduce the risk of these attacks by:
– Making sure your security software patches are up-to-date.
– Making sure you are running anti-virus software.
– Backing-up your data in multiple locations, including offline.
– Avoiding opening unknown email attachments or clicking on links in spam emails.
More advice can be found at https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/ https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/ https://www.ncsc.gov.uk.
