ISSUES at hospitals across Wirral are expected to continue over the weekend following a cyber attack on the local NHS trust.

On Monday (November 25) Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (WUTH) declared a “major incident” after they were hit with a cyber attack.

The incident has affected all its hospitals including Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge.

Hundreds of appointments have been cancelled and staff have been forced to do everything manually as systems holding records are down. 

Today (Friday, November 29) the trust said that issues are expected to continue over the weekend.

A WUTH spokesperson said: “We expect the major incident that was declared at the Trust earlier this week to continue over the weekend.

“The major incident was declared following a targeted cyber security issue and we are working hard to rectify the issue.

“After detecting suspicious activity, as a precaution, we isolated our systems to ensure that the problem did not spread.

“This resulted in some IT systems being offline. We have reverted to our business continuity processes and are using paper rather than digital in the areas affected.

“We are working closely with the national cyber security services and we are planning to return to normal services at the earliest opportunity.

“Our staff are working tirelessly to ensure that safe patient care remains our priority.

“While services continue to be available, there has been disruption to planned services, for example, some scheduled appointments are affected.

“Unfortunately we have had to postpone some procedures which will be rescheduled. The public are advised to continue to attend any scheduled appointments, along with their appointment letters, unless contacted otherwise.

“The Trust continues to prioritise emergency treatment but there are likely to be longer than usual waiting times for unplanned treatment in our Emergency Department and assessment areas.

“We urge all members of the public to attend the Emergency Department only for genuine emergencies.

“In an emergency please call 999. For non-urgent health concerns, please use NHS 111, visit a walk-in centre, urgent treatment centre, your GP, or pharmacist.”