GP Cyber Incident Drills

Cyber incidents now feature in national risk assessments for primary care. Running short drills helps teams spot weaknesses before an attacker does and reassures regulators that the practice can respond quickly.

Choose scenarios that feel real

• Clinical system outage on a Monday morning with incoming appointment traffic.
• Compromised NHSmail account sending malicious attachments to patients and partners.
• Unauthorised access to a shared drive discovered during an internal audit.

Structure the exercise

1. Alert: Recreate how the issue is reported and confirm who coordinates the response.
2. Assess: Ask what systems are affected, what data might be exposed, and how patients will be supported.
3. Contain: Decide immediate actions such as isolating devices, changing credentials, and contacting national helpdesks.
4. Communicate: Draft internal briefings, patient updates, and partner notifications with agreed approval routes.
5. Recover: Test manual fallbacks, validate data integrity, and record criteria for restoring normal service.

Rehearse critical roles

• Incident manager responsible for decisions and escalation.
• Clinical lead focused on patient safety implications.
• Communications lead preparing clear messages for staff and patients.
• IT liaison coordinating suppliers, PCN support, and technical remediation.

Capture evidence and learning

• Log timelines, decisions, and outstanding risks in an incident record.
• Record follow up actions, prioritising quick wins such as password resets or updated contact lists.
• Review the drill within a week to confirm actions are complete and plan the next exercise.

Get started now

Run a call tree drill this month to confirm contact details and escalation routes still work. Share results with leadership and highlight where premium incident playbooks, notification templates, and training modules can build wider resilience across the practice or PCN.

Disclaimer

This guidance is for general information. It is not a substitute for legal, clinical, or specialist advice. Always seek professional support tailored to your practice.