All weekend appointments booked at the James Paget University Hopsital (JPUH) in Gorleston have been cancelled after the hospital was hit by a massive cyber attack.

The hospital was one of a number of NHS organisations across the country which was hit by a large-scale cyber attack yesterday as the health service was plunged into chaos.

A spokesman for hospital said emergency procedures would continue, but they had cancelled clinical and surgical appointments.

Because of the IT outage, hospital staff had not been able to access some records to obtain contact details and let patients know.

Head of communications Ann Filby said they were not asking accident and emergency patients to go elsewhere - as was happening elsewhere in the country - but they had reverted to a paper system.

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She said: 'We've got well-trained processes in place. We have not got to that stage [of asking patients to go elsewhere], we've gone to the paper system and there's no impact on patients at the moment.'

Neither the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, in Norwich, or the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in King's Lynn, were affected.

But the NHS has advised computer systems across the country should be shut down, and paper systems used.

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It is thought up to 40 NHS organisations have been involved nationwide.