NHS staff have been praised for their hard work as they continue to help patients during a huge cyber attack that has hit hospitals and GP surgeries across the country.
The attack hit communications and computers, forcing doctors to use pen and paper and staff to communicate by hand-held radios.
Many operations had to be cancelled as people’s records could not be accessed.
Anthony Brett, 50, was about to have a stent put in his liver at St Bartholomew’s Hospital to treat his cancer when he was told the procedure could not happen.
His son Terence, 29, said doctors and nurses had been busy trying to minimise the impact on patients like his father.
He said: “All the hospital staff were running about everywhere, the nurses were very worried and very busy.
“The doctors were really worried about it too. They were trying to take everyone’s details down on paper because all the computers were shut down.
“It must be really hard for all the nurses to keep track of everything with all the hacking going on.”
One woman said her doctor had been “amazing” in helping her daughter get her prescription despite the outage.
Anthony Brett said of the hackers: “There are so many corporations out there they could be getting money from, but to do it to the NHS that does so much good for people, it’s just disgusting.
“They should be hung drawn and quartered.”
One nurse praised the teamwork at the Derbyshire Community Health Trust, despite the “shocking” attack.
One woman praised her “amazing” doctor for sorting out her daughter’s prescription with pen and paper.
Others praised the staff they met amid the system failure, including one woman who couldn’t undergo a scan because of what happened.
The massive cyber hit is part of a wider international attack and there is no evidence that patient data has been compromised, Theresa May said.
The attack is believed to have hit 74 countries.
GP surgeries were also hit.
Liverpool GP Dr Chris Mimnagh told The Guardian his surgery could only deal with urgent cases after the attack.
He said: “Unable to access our clinical system – as a precaution our area has severed links to the wider NHS, which means no access to our national systems, no computers means no records, no prescriptions, no results, we are dealing with urgent problems only, our patients are being very understanding so far.”