An appeal has been launched for O blood-type donors to book appointments across the country following the ransomware attack affecting major London hospitals.NHS Blood and Transplant is appealing for O blood-type donors to book appointments to donate as this is safe to use for all patients.The IT attack means the affected hospitals cannot currently match patients’ blood at the same frequency as usual.Several London hospitals declared a critical incident, cancelled operations and tests, and were unable to carry out blood transfusions last week after the attack on the pathology firm Synnovis, which Qilin, a Russian group of cyber criminals, is understood to have been behind.
Memos to NHS staff at King’s College Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ (including the Royal Brompton and the Evelina London Children’s Hospital) and primary care services in London said a critical incident had been declared.Now NHS Blood and Transplant is calling for O positive and O negative blood donors to book appointments in one of the 25 NHS Blood Donor Centres, external in England to boost stocks.For surgeries and procedures requiring blood to take place, hospitals need to use O- type blood as this is safe to use for all patients and blood has a shelf life of 35 days, so stocks need to be continually replenished, the NHS said.
Dr Gail Miflin, chief medical officer, NHS Blood and Transplant, said: "Patient safety is our absolute priority.
"To support London hospitals to carry out more surgeries and to provide the best care we can for all patients, we need more O negative and O positive donors than usual.
"Professor Stephen Powis, medical director for NHS England, said staff are going “above and beyond to minimise the significant disruption to patients” caused by the IT attack.
“We know that a number of operations and appointments have been postponed or diverted to other neighbouring hospitals not impacted by the cyber-attack, as we prioritise pathology services for the most clinically urgent cases,” he added.
The original article contains 524 words, the summary contains 326 words. Saved 38%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
An appeal has been launched for O blood-type donors to book appointments across the country following the ransomware attack affecting major London hospitals.NHS Blood and Transplant is appealing for O blood-type donors to book appointments to donate as this is safe to use for all patients.The IT attack means the affected hospitals cannot currently match patients’ blood at the same frequency as usual.Several London hospitals declared a critical incident, cancelled operations and tests, and were unable to carry out blood transfusions last week after the attack on the pathology firm Synnovis, which Qilin, a Russian group of cyber criminals, is understood to have been behind.
Memos to NHS staff at King’s College Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ (including the Royal Brompton and the Evelina London Children’s Hospital) and primary care services in London said a critical incident had been declared.Now NHS Blood and Transplant is calling for O positive and O negative blood donors to book appointments in one of the 25 NHS Blood Donor Centres, external in England to boost stocks.For surgeries and procedures requiring blood to take place, hospitals need to use O- type blood as this is safe to use for all patients and blood has a shelf life of 35 days, so stocks need to be continually replenished, the NHS said.
Dr Gail Miflin, chief medical officer, NHS Blood and Transplant, said: "Patient safety is our absolute priority.
"To support London hospitals to carry out more surgeries and to provide the best care we can for all patients, we need more O negative and O positive donors than usual.
"Professor Stephen Powis, medical director for NHS England, said staff are going “above and beyond to minimise the significant disruption to patients” caused by the IT attack.
“We know that a number of operations and appointments have been postponed or diverted to other neighbouring hospitals not impacted by the cyber-attack, as we prioritise pathology services for the most clinically urgent cases,” he added.
The original article contains 524 words, the summary contains 326 words. Saved 38%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!