In today's IT world this resulted in medical staff resorting to a now ancient technology to cope, pen and paper.
Although the hospital was able to keep it's operating theatres open all emergency service ambulances to the A&E (Accident and Emergency) department were diverted to nearby hospitals.
According to Graham Cluley of Sophos, the anti-virus experts
The infection at Barts and London Trust was reportedly caused by the Mytob worm, which contains built-in spyware functionality. Mytob spreads by email and has the ability to plant backdoor software on compromised Windows PCs.
It does make you question the IT infrastrucutre and data security procedures of a major holder of confidential information. If you can't trust your doctor to keep your information secret who can you trust?