NHS urges 1M people to donate blood following paralyzing cyberattack

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is calling on one million donors after a cyberattack last summer caused a severe shortage of O-negative blood.

It’s National Blood Week, and the NHS is urging one million people in the UK to donate blood after a devastating cyberattack on London hospitals paralyzed blood stocks.

This comes after the NHS Blood and Transplant analysis revealed that they’re short by 200,000 donors.

“Just two per cent of the population is keeping the nation's blood stocks afloat,” the NHS said, meaning that more people are now being encouraged to give blood.

This plea comes after a cyberattack hit London hospitals in July 2024. According to the NHS, the NHS Blood and Transplant services issued an Amber alert about severe shortages.

This is due to “operations and procedures which rely more heavily on pathology services” being postponed, the NHS said back in July.

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The cyberattack that hit major London hospitals knocked out Synnovis’ networks, an NHS lab partner.

Synnovis is considered one of the largest “purpose-built pathology laboratories” hubs in the UK, making it the main provider for the affected hospitals.

The hospitals involved included King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Royal Brompton Hospital, and Evelina London Children's Hospital, as well as primary care services in the southeast part of the capital.

The attack was later linked to the Russian-based Qilin ransomware group and was declared a “critical incident” by the NHS.

After the event, the NHS said that “Blood stocks have remained low and following several bank holidays in quick succession, there is now a pressing need to avoid a Red Alert, which would mean demand far exceeds capacity, threatening public safety.”

“The NHS urgently needs to find more O-negative and Ro donors. The public is being urged to come and give blood, find out if they have the high-demand blood types, and help save more lives,” the NHS concludes.