BRADFORD District Care NHS Foundation Trust is celebrating being one of just a few NHS Trusts in the country to receive Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation to protect its IT systems from cyber-attacks.

Secure IT systems are central to the delivery of the mental health, community health and specialist learning disability services provided by the Care Trust and its advanced cyber security controls guard against common attacks such as phishing, ransomware, malware and password and network hacks.

Only around 12 NHS Trusts have achieved Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation, which is a Government-backed scheme developed by the National Cyber Security Centre. After achieving the initial Cyber Essentials accreditation on Wednesday 2 September 2020, the Care Trust’s Cyber Security and IT teams worked hard to achieve the highest accolade ‘Cyber Essential Plus’, which assures members of the public, its stakeholders and partners across Bradford, Airedale, Wharfedale, Craven and Wakefield that the Trust has advanced cyber security controls.

Tim Rycroft, Chief Information Officer, said: “This accreditation is a real testament to the hard work and continued commitment made by the Cyber Security team to protect our staff and, ultimately, the patients and service users that we serve.”