I have a friend who works for the NHS in the UK at a local Dr's surgery and although they have not directly been affected they could not access centrally stored data on friday.

As of Monday they had to make sure all computers were powered off and would remain powered off until someone with the IT savvy comes along on Tuesday to patch 2 computers.

Not all the computers no, just two out many leaving disruption to patients.

Remember this is affecting the whole of the UK.
It also shows that big organisations are complacent and have no contingency plans for such events.

I think the attack is real but the source of the attack is questionable especially when they only accept bitcoin payments.

I think this is a start of the criminalisation of Bitcoin with a series of events to unfold which will blind the masses through the MSM.

I wont even start to discuss why when the NHS is cancelling operations because they cannot access patient records.

If the data is critical to any business why are they running out of date , unpatched Windows XP operating systems?

Complancey at its finest.