WIRRAL Council has given an update following a cyber attack on a local NHS trust which led to it declaring a “major incident.” Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said the attack was affecting all its hospitals including at Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge.

An email, seen by the LDRS and sent to staff members on Monday evening, said: “A major incident has been declared at the Trust due to a cyber incident and we are working to downtime processes.” This affected all clinical activity.

Appointments have been cancelled and staff have been forced to do everything manually as systems holding records are down. One patient said they were told no x-rays or theatres were operating on November 26.

At a meeting on November 26, chair of the council’s adult social care and public health committee Cllr Julie McManus gave an update on the situation. Though the council is a separate organisation from Wirral University Teaching Hospital, the NHS and local authority work closely together on issues like discharging patients from hospital into community or residential social care.

Cllr McManus said the NHS Trust would be making announcements regarding the situation but the local authority “have been reassured that the continuity plans are in place. They’ve been working with council and other partners to make sure the business resilience is in place and that is really all we can say at this stage.”

On November 26, a Wirral University Teaching Hospital spokesperson issued an updated statement that the situation remains ongoing, adding: “We are working to rectify the issue and our business continuity processes are in place.

“Our priority remains ensuring patient safety. Some outpatient appointments scheduled today and tomorrow are cancelled. Where appointments have been cancelled, we have contacted patients directly. We apologise for any inconvenience and we will contact our patients as soon as possible to rearrange.

“Maternity services are running as normal. All antenatal appointments, community midwife appointments, scans and post-natal visits are continuing as usual. Please still attend maternity appointments unless contacted otherwise. The 24 hour emergency triage service is running as normal.

“We urge all members of the public to attend the Emergency Department only for genuine emergencies. For non-urgent health concerns, please use NHS 111, visit a walk-in centre, urgent treatment centre, your GP, or pharmacist.”

Later on in the meeting during a discussion of the local authority’s pressures health and care services face going on into the winter, the local authority’s adult health services director Sayyed Osman referred to the ongoing incident, adding that on average, 60 to 70 people were coming into hospital too that later needed complex nursing or residential care.

He said: “We’re still facing a very difficult winter. Again when we met with the Department for Health and Social Care and other government departments, we’re impressing on them the importance of recognising some sort of winter pressure funding to help us have the resilience to get through this winter because it’s already starting to show significant challenges.”

At the beginning of the year, the council’s health services were expected to go over budget by £10m but has since managed to reduce this budget gap to £6.5m. He said the situation was “still incredibly challenging” despite the progress.

Mr Osman said increasingly care needs were becoming more and more complex, rising cost of services, and an ageing population would put further strain on services, adding: “We’re having to run faster to stand still.” He said the council faces a difficult winter and wouldn’t have a clear picture until February.

He added: “We are effectively the most important service to the NHS because without a strong social services department or adult social care, the NHS can’t be resilient.”

Concerns were also raised during the meeting about how the council’s budget for next year was being set with senior councillors and party leaders accused of “slicing up the pie and coming back to us saying this is what we’ve got.” Cllr Simon Mountney argued social domestic care as an example “may be more important than the sixth round of grass cut per year and put up a fight on our behalf.”

He called for the health committee to have a better understanding of the council’s overall finances, which was echoed by Cllr McManus who said “there are things that are more important in life and [care] is one of them.” Officers said the committee would be making the key decisions around health services in the new year and would be updated on the options going forward next month.