WHISTON Hospital is at ‘extreme risk’ from further malicious cyber-attacks, a new report has said.

In May 2017, more than a third of trusts in England were affected by the WannaCry ransomware attack, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

The attack was biggest cyber-attack to have hit the NHS to date.

Christine Walters, St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust’s director of informatics, told the board this week that the NHS is targeted ‘all the time’.

Her comments come after the trust raised the risk of a malicious cyber-attack from ‘moderate’ risk to ‘extreme risk’.

Ms Walters said: “We’re doing everything we can to keep ourselves safe but we will get hit again – we just don’t know when and what format that will take.

“But that’s not us, that’s every organisation in the NHS.”

Following the Wannacry cyber-attack, all NHS organisations have a requirement to further secure their clinical information systems.

Ms Walters said the trust has invested in numerous cyber security tools to help protect itself against future attacks, and said it is ‘leading the way’ in some areas.

Richard Fraser, chairman of the board, said some ‘adjacent’ trusts are not as well prepared as St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

The Informatics Strategy Update, which was presented to the board in June, said the trust has achieved Cyber Essentials Accreditation, level two of the Information Governance Toolkit and ‘Significant Assurance’ from Mersey Internal Audit.

“The informatics service has continued to ensure the safety and security of our infrastructure and clinical systems through robust cyber security actions and we continue to collaborate with our partners and other local NHS to ensure that the infrastructure can support new and innovative ways of working,” the report said.

It added that further cyber security work is planned.