Officials unsure when IT problems at Leeds hospitals will be solved

Appointments have been cancelled at hospitals in Leeds following an IT fault.

The pathology IT system at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust started showing problems on Friday and crashed on Sunday.

Some non-urgent appointments have been postponed so that tests for emergency and urgent cases can be prioritised, a spokeswoman for the trust confirmed.

The "hardware failure" in the trust's Telepath pathology system is still notfixed and officials do not yet know when it will be operational again.

While the pathology department is still able to conduct tests, they are havingto manually report the results to doctors on the wards.

The pathology department also provides services for Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and many GPs in the region.

But the trust said that many tests such as X-ray and scans were stillworking as usual.

Suzanne Hinchliffe, chief nurse and deputy chief executive at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, said: "We have been experiencing some significant problems with our pathology IT system which means we are unable to electronically report on patients' test results.

"This is impacting on the timeliness of the service we provide to patients andwe apologise for the inconvenience this is causing.

"We are still able to process tests, but because it is taking so much longer to report the results without the IT system, we are unable to deal with the normal volume of activity. Tests such as x-rays and scans are not affected by these IT issues.

"To ensure the safety of our patients, our doctors are reviewing andprioritising those with urgent or emergency needs. Unfortunately, this means we have been required to postpone some appointments. Any patients affected are being contacted directly and we expect to be able to rearrange these as soon as the problem is resolved."