SOUTH London Healthcare Trust's website was attacked by hackers overnight.

The attack meant the website was out of action for several hours although it is now back up and running.

While down, the name on the site read Group HP-Hack and displayed images of the Syrian civil war.

The trust, currently in administration, runs Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, Farnborough's Pru, Orpington Hospital and Queen Mary's in Sidcup.

A trust spokesman said: "SLHT's website was hacked during the night on August 28 but is now up and running as normal.

"We are sorry for any inconvenience to patients and visitors during the short period overnight that the website was out of action.

"This hacking group appears to target websites at random, and there is no reason why the SLHT site was targeted. We are investigating how this has happened.

"The hacking of the site has not compromised security of the Trust’s IT systems, which are protected by the very secure national NHS network. The website is hosted externally and is completely separate to systems used in the hospital."