Update: Hospitals still recovering from computer virus

The London hospitals affected by the Mytob computer virus have still not fully recovered, with engineers continuing to roll out a recovery plan.

Computer and network access was progressively being restored in key areas of Barts, The Royal London and the London Chest Hospital. An NHS spokesperson said that it was looking at next week for a possible full recovery.

The Trust said in a statement that people with appointments should attend as planned, and that anyone with enquiries should call as normal, although people should be aware that there could be delays.

Julian Nettel, chief executive of Barts and the London NHS Trust, said in a statement: "I would particularly like to thank all our staff, patients and other NHS colleagues for their hard work, help and support."

Ash Patel, UK country manager at enterprise security company Stonesoft, said that the viruses highlighted the need to businesses to roll out the most up-to-date patches for PCs and servers as possible.

He also said: "Another preventative measure would be to have a recognised IPS device that will prevent such malware from entering an organisation by scanning all the traffic that passes through the device.

"By working with a Network Access Control (NAC) you also help such infected machines from connecting and ultimately paralysing the network."