Thousands of vulnerable Brits are 'abandoned' by one of the UK's top mobility ... trends now
Thousands of vulnerable Brits have been abandoned after one of the UK's biggest mobility equipment firms was hacked on Good Friday.
A week after the cyber attack, NRS Healthcare, which delivers hospital beds, wheelchairs and almost 4,000 other aids to millions of Britons, still has no working phone lines, emails or website, leaving elderly and disabled people feeling desperate.
The firm - which is owned by private equity giant Graphite, run by wealthy Austrian venture capitalist Markus Golser - has won outsourced contracts for swathes of the UK's local authorities, supplying bed rails, hoists and other equipment that's vital for them to live independently.
But NRS's entire business has been down since Good Friday - and it has failed to let its vulnerable customers know.
Anyone calling its national phoneline is directed to an out-of-hours O2 mobile number which says it's voicemail is 'full'.
Have YOU been affected by the fiasco? Email [email protected]
Nimmy Chowdhary (pictured), 59, is one of the many vulnerable people who have been impacted by the outage
She had a stroke eight years ago that left her paralysed on the right-hand side of her body and a vital part of her mobility bed broke seven weeks ago
Its website has said: 'This site is down for maintenance. Please check back again soon' since the Easter holiday. Emails bounce back.
Social media is full of desperate NRS service users. One wrote on the X platform: 'Shame on u NRS health care after 7 missed delivery appointments in last 6 weeks… And no one has ever called back. Is this the way to treat the severely disabled.'
Another wrote: 'I've spent the last three days trying to get hold of you spending hours on hold to then be cut off.
'My delivery was meant to be four days ago and today your office is closed?'
Some patients are stranded in their homes due to lack of equipment: 'I've tried calling NRS today as my father's floor bed has a fault and we cannot raise it.
'The poor carers are having to work at an impossibly low height.'
Another said: 'Thank you @NRSHealthcare for totally wasting my day, through the engineer booked to check my mum's medical bed not turning up.'
One customer wrote: 'My recently bereaved Dad waited in for 12 hours yesterday and nobody turned up as arranged.'
'How are NHS staff managing to line up equipment for patients for discharge? The service is breathtakingly abysmal,' asks another. 'It's likely that NRS's failures are causing blockages in hospital discharges, if patients do not have vital equipment delivered to their homes.'
Nimmy Chowdhary, 59, had a stroke eight years ago that left her paralysed on the right-hand side of her body.
Since a vital part of her mobility bed broke seven weeks ago, she has spent over 100 hours trying to get a replacement from NRS, most of those during the last week when the company has been unobtainable.
The former business owner, who lives in Barnet but had to give up her company
