HEALTH chiefs have sought to reassure Swindon patients - after MPs suggested that the NHS was not prepared for another cyber attack.

Scores of NHS hospitals and organisations were hit by the WannaCry hacker attack last year.

Swindon's Great Western Hospital was not caught up in the attack, which saw hackers attempt to hold to ransom hundreds of businesses and organisations around the world.

But the effect on the NHS was significant, with doctors at some hospitals forced to communicate via messaging app WhatsApp. 

Now, the House of Commons' influential Public Accounts Committee warned in a probe into the attack that important reforms to NHS web systems were still not being put in place.

Calling the WannaCry attack a "wake up call", the committee said: "Government must waste no time in preparing for future cyber-attacks - something it admits are now a fact of life.

"It is therefore alarming that, nearly a year on from WannaCry, plans to implement the lessons learned are still to be agreed."

Swindon NHS Clinical Commission Group, which is keen to use online systems to improve care in the town, said IT safety was a top priority. 

A spokesman said: “The increased focus on cyber security presented us with a valuable and timely opportunity to review our own systems, to ensure they are not only secure and robust but able to adapt to the ever-changing threat of external interference. 

“While there isn’t an organisation on the planet that can claim to be 100 per cent immune to malicious attacks, Swindon Clinical Commissioning Group has a zero complacency approach to security and will always hold the safety of its IT systems as a top priority.”