Computers in the National Health Service (NHS) have been hit by 8,000 viruses in the last year alone.

More4News instigated A Freedom of Information investigation which discovered the extent of the virus attacks which have included all sorts of malicious code including worms, Trojans and spyware. This has in some cases caused havoc within some departments of the NHS, causing postponed appointments, diverted ambulances and staff being locked out of their computers.

Apart from the widespread inconvenience, this has caused one department to suffer a three-week back-log of appointments.

One virus was caused Mytob and was a worm which caused chaos throughout London hospitals in November, 2008. Mytob quickly infiltrated networks and computers and simply overloaded systems.

But far from indicating a complete failure of the NHS computer systems, security experts say that it comes down to NHS IT staff not updating their systems properly. In other words, most of the virus attacks could have been prevented with effective IT management.

And for those that are concerned that such a lack of security might mean that their personal records might one day appear on the internet for all to see, the NHS point out that electronic records are protected by the highest levels of security.

After suffering 8,000 virus attacks in on year, that might be hard for many to believe.

Guest Article by Neil Camp