Boards must take their responsibility for cyber security more seriously
Cyberattacks keep crippling NHS services not due to missing technology, but predictable board-level governance failures that leave known vulnerabilities unaddressed
The Synnovis ransomware attack in June 2024 cancelled 10,000 appointments and forced hospitals to rely on manual blood-test processing for weeks – cost: £32.7m. Seven years earlier, WannaCry paralysed 80 NHS trusts – cost: £92m.
Source: HSJ, 21 November 2025