Hockley General Practice Surgery Data Breach (2020)

THOUSANDS of alerts have been sent to patients at a leading GPs' practice amid fears their medical records have been hacked. Staff at Hockley Medical Practice, based in the Jewellery Quarter, have acted swiftly after being made aware of the possible cyber attack. The surgery has 8,839 patients. A text message has been sent to all adults on its books. An NHS spokesperson said there was no indication any other surgery has been affected. She stressed it has not yet been established if a hacker had syphoned sensitive data, but the situation is being taken extremely seriously. One patient received an urgent email purporting to be from the NHS. It included personal details and even referred to his bid to join the army. He was told to click on a link for further action immediately. "The doctor referred to in the email had left two years ago, so I knew something was wrong," he said. "It's extremely worrying and I've been told by the practice that they're investigating the matter." He has contacted his MP over the situation. On Friday, two senior members of NHS Sandwell and West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group issued a warning.