Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what lessons the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS have learned from the recent global IT outage, and what plans they have to issue guidance to ensure that hospitals, primary care centres and care homes have local computer or analogue back-ups to avoid appointments and operations being cancelled in the event of a recurrence.

While this was an IT outage, not a cyber security incident, the National Health Service has robust cyber security measures in place, and is increasing cyber resilience across health and social care.

Health and care organisations are required to have business continuity plans in place, which we will continue to strengthen, to minimise disruption in the event of an IT outage or cyber incident. As outlined in The King’s Speech, the Government’s new Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will strengthen our defences and ensure that essential digital services are protected by expanding the remit of the existing regulation, putting regulators on a stronger footing, and increasing reporting requirements, to build a better picture in Government of cyber threats.