Following the recent cyber-attack on Dumfries and Galloway NHS IT systems, Scotland’s health secretary Neil Gray has reassured that the disruption was minimal, while showing marked concern around the state of cybersecurity with regards to Scotland’s public sector.

While the NHS system is now running as normal, and Gray assured the public that “there has been minimal impact on patient services.”

“I’m very grateful to everyone who is working to ensure people still receive the best possible care while we work at pace to ensure a return to normal working practices,” Gray said.

However, the secretary also noted how high-stakes the situation was: a significant amount of sensitive data belonging to patients and staff could have been compromised.

Gray reassured Labour MSP Colin Smith that the government would monitor and review the attack and its consequences in an effort to strengthen the cyber-resilience of the sector.

However, Gray was not able at the time to offer much reassurance on what confidential data the hackers were able to access, as it was difficult to contact patients directly.

Gray also said that some members of staff were having to change their working practices in the short term, despite saying operations were mostly normal.

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The health board chief executive, Jeff Ace, said that they were treating the matter seriously and had been working with partner agencies – including Police Scotland, the National Cyber Security Centre, and the Scottish government – to secure the existing systems and assess the risks to any accessed data.

“It must be noted that this is a live criminal investigation, and we are very limited in what we can say,” he said. “In addition, a great deal of work is required in order to say with assurance what data may have been obtained, and we are not yet in that position.”