HOSPITALS in East Lancashire are operational today after working ‘around the clock’ following a major cyber-attack struck the NHS.

‘Major incident’ plans were put in place following the attack on Friday but medical chiefs said that patient treatment and care was not affected at the Royal Blackburn, Burnley General and Accrington Victoria hospitals.

All major clinical information systems are working following the incident while IT staff are continuing to repair infected PCs and laptops.

East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust praised the work of staff in the aftermath of the attack.

Tracy McGlone, clinical director for therapies, said: “We immediately implemented our major incident plans to ensure patient safety and maintain trust-wide operations, with our focus on the most essential services.

“Ever since the cyber attack began, trust staff have responded magnificently to this unprecedented situation and have rallied round to help where needed.

“Our IT staff are working around the clock to maintain and replace essential systems and we continue working on a solution to restore all computer systems as quickly and safely as possible.”

Outpatient clinics, elective and day case surgery will also all go ahead today as planned.

The trust said there is no indication that information relating to patients was affected in the cyber-attack.

Health service digital experts said ‘ransomware’ had infiltrated NHS systems, using a program called ‘Wanna Decryptor’.

A small number of non-urgent operations had to be postponed following the incident on Friday to help manage the workload.

Dozens of hospitals and health centres across the UK were believed to have been hampered by the incident.

The hospitals trust also warned that while urgent care centres are working as normal they are expected to be busy.

Therefore people requiring non-emergency medical advice are advised to contact NHS 111 or visit www.choices.nhs.uk.