This article was last reviewed on
This article waslast modified on 10 July 2017.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recently reported on hoax emails that have been sent to thousands of patients, informing them that blood results show that they have cancer. NICE is advising people who have received the email - the subject line of which is “important blood analysis result” - to delete it without opening it and not to click on any links contained within the message.

NICE subsequently reported the email to the authorities and are currently investigating the origins of the message.

NICE Chief Executive Sir Andrew Dillon said “A spam email purporting to come from NICE is being sent to members of the public regarding cancer test results. This email is likely to cause distress to recipients since it advises that ‘test results' indicate they may have cancer. This malicious email is not from NICE and we are currently investigating its origin. We take this matter very seriously and have reported it to the police.”

Updates on this story may be accessed from the NICE website and also via Twitter: @NICEComms