Waiting on WannaCry
Audrey, in London, was 31 when a knee injury collided with WannaCry, one of the most disruptive ransomware attacks in NHS history. What she couldn’t have known was that the attack would leave her waiting far longer for a diagnosis than the injury itself warranted.
“I am a very bad skier, and I tore my ACL, one of the ligaments that stabilises the knee, skiing in France March 2017. I came back to the UK and saw my GP who sent me for scans. First an X-ray, which showed my kneecap was out of place because of the swelling, then the doctors at the hospital referred me for an MRI for a detailed internal scan to figure out why my knee was so swollen in the first place.
At that time, the NHS was usually reasonably quick with things like this. I got in for the scan in an acceptable time frame—maybe a week or two later. But then I kept waiting and waiting for someone to tell me the result. In the meantime, I was still on crutches, not knowing if it was even safe to try to walk on the knee. My muscles were atrophying, which I knew would only make the recovery take longer.
All told, between waiting for the scan and waiting for the results, it was over two months before I found out what was wrong with my knee and could start treating it with physical therapy. Part of that delay, I later understood, was the WannaCry cyberattack—the radiologist who needed to read my scan couldn’t access it, and then once they could, they had a backlog of scans from the time they’d been locked out.
“Part of that delay, I later understood, was the WannaCry cyberattack.”
I don’t remember any single moment where someone called and told me the scan was inaccessible—mostly I just remember ringing up periodically, asking if anyone knew what was going on with my knee yet. My honest first thought the whole time was: for f***'s sake, I want to walk already. I’m sick of this.
The real cost wasn’t the wait itself—it was that I didn’t start physio, which I should have started right away. My muscles atrophied more than they needed to, and that added a lot of extra time onto my recovery. It was months before I could walk without a limp and years before I could run or go downstairs without pain.I have no real way of knowing how much earlier treatment would have changed that, but I suspect it would have helped a lot.
There wasn’t much explanation following the attack, and there wasn’t really any accountability for it. Eventually they told me I’d torn my ACL and pulled my MCL, the ligament on the inner side of the knee, and I started physical therapy. That was it.
“There wasn’t much explanation following the attack, and there wasn’t really any accountability for it.”
I still deal with the consequences—one leg is weaker, one knee less stable. It’s 2026, and I’m still doing exercises trying to get my left leg to catch up to my right.
If I could tell someone going through the same thing right now: it sucks, and it isn’t your fault. I also wish I’d thought to ask the doctor, while I was waiting—is there anything I can do right now, before you know what’s wrong? Could I get a physical therapy referral without waiting on the scan results? I didn’t think to ask. I wish I had.”
Audrey, United Kingdom
