Thousands of patient records taken in cyber attack

One of the largest hospital trusts in England has confirmed thousands of patient test results were stolen in a cyber attack in 2024.

Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust (MSE), which runs Broomfield hospital in Chelmsford as well as Basildon and Southend hospitals, said the breach involved 2,380 records.

The data was taken from the computer drives of a third‑party testing provider, Synnovis, that analysed blood, urine and tissue samples.

The trust, which was notified about the breach in December, said it would be contacting those affected.

The trust is one of an undisclosed number of NHS organisations whose confidential patient data was involved in the data breach.

Last week, Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust revealed almost 33,000 of its patients had their data stolen in the same hack.

According to Synnovis, the data was published on the dark web.

It said there was no evidence the data had been used maliciously and it was stolen "in haste and in a random manner".

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Source: BBC News, 6 June 2026