Regulator said last summer that threat of attacks had put patient data at risk and jeopardised clinicians’ access to records

Operations and hospital clinic appointments due to take place on Tuesday have been cancelled amid claims that ministers ignored warnings last year that the NHS could be at risk from cyber-attacks like the ongoing ransomware causing havoc in 150 countries.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, said an anticipated second wave of malware attacks in Britain, that experts had feared might strike on Monday, did not materialise.

But he had to defend the government’s record on NHS cybersecurity after it emerged that the health service regulator, the Care Quality Commission, and the national data guardian, Dame Fiona Caldicott, warned last July that the threat of such attacks “has not only put patient information at risk of loss or compromise but also jeopardises access to critical patient record systems by clinicians”.

The unprecedented cyber-attack froze computers across the NHS on Friday, threatening to delete key files unless a ransom was paid. It also hit big organisations such as Telefonica, Deutsche Bahn and FedEx as it rapidly spread around the globe.



However, by Monday it had slowed its course thanks to users downloading updates to protect their computers, an “accidental hero” registering a website that acted as a kill switch to stop the spread and intense remedial action by IT security experts.



On Monday, Vladimir Putin denied that his country was behind the global attack and blamed the US. The Russian leader cited the fact that the ransomware relied on information that came from a leak of US National Security Agency (NSA) hacking tools, a point also made by Microsoft’s president.

“Microsoft’s leadership stated this directly. They said the source of the virus was the special services of the United States,” Putin said at a summit in Beijing.

The office of Britain’s National Data Guardian said: “The need for steps to be taken to protect the health and care system against cyber-attack remains a priority for the national data guardian. Dame Fiona highlighted the importance of this in the review that she published last year, and is committed to working with others across the system to ensure that effective measures are in place and that lessons are learned from this incident.”

Hunt was criticised by NHS leaders angry that trusts had been accused of bringing problems on themselves by making themselves vulnerable to cyber-attacks by not taking preventative measures seriously enough.

Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents most trusts, said: “The quick rush by some to lay the blame on ‘incompetent NHS managers’ is disappointing. It feels like the usual NHS bashing and is unsupported by evidence. This unfortunate blame game may in part be down to the fact that we are in the middle of a general election campaign.”

NHS Providers and Managers in Partnership (MiP), a trade union which represents 6,200 senior NHS managers, claimed government underfunding had caused problems by preventing health service bodies spending enough money on protecting their IT systems.

Hunt’s raids on the NHS capital budget in recent years had backfired, they said.

“We have been warning about the risks associated with switching funding from infrastructure priorities such as IT to deal with day-to-day running costs,” said Saffron Cordery, NHS Providers’ director of policy and strategy.

“Our members tell us they are deeply concerned that we are storing up problems for the future. When funding is squeezed in this way, there is sure to be a reckoning.”

Jon Restell, the chief executive of MiP, said: “Managers are constantly balancing investment decisions, but chronic underfunding of the NHS has led to trusts being forced to give less priority to back-office systems and capital projects and understandably give priority to clinical running costs. However, this approach is not sustainable because the clinical frontline relies on an effective back office, as we discovered on Friday.

“In hindsight, some trusts may have been unwise to not prioritise investment in IT. The recent attacks will mean reappraisal of investment priorities.”

Hunt dismissed suggestions that the NHS’s tight budget had played a part in so many NHS bodies falling victim to the attack.

“Although we did use some of the capital budget for revenue spending, the IT budget has been protected. In fact, the IT budget at the spending review in 2015 was increased substantially,” he said.

“We put £50m in to a new NHS cybersecurity centre, so this has been an area where, despite all the financial pressures on the NHS, we have been increasing spend and that is why we were able to get more than 95% of services up and running normally for patients within 24 hours of this massive international attack.”

Forty of the 47 NHS organisations hit by the WannaCry attack had returned to normal service by Monday after a weekend of disruption. However, seven hospital trusts in England were still experiencing problems, which forced them to scale back the range of services they usually provide.

The Southport and Ormskirk trust cancelled all outpatient and endoscopy appointments and CT and MRI scans scheduled to take place on Monday and Tuesday. It also cut the number of operations it was due to carry out, but did continue to offer kidney dialysis, blood clinics and other services.

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Barts Health in London, the NHS’s biggest trust, was another of those still affected on Monday. The trust said its hospitals were open again for emergency care but: “We have reduced the volume of planned services on Monday and Tuesday to ensure we can continue to run services safely.”

The East and North Hertfordshire trust cancelled non-urgent blood tests at its Lister, New QEII and Hertford County hospitals and suspended its diabetic screening service.

In China, “hundreds of thousands” of computers were affected, including petrol stations, cash machines and universities, according to Qihoo 360, one of China’s largest providers of antivirus software.

French carmaker Renault shut its Douai plant, one of its biggest sites in France employing 5,500 people, in order to upgrade its IT systems on Monday.