Thousands of GP surgeries in England hit by global IT outage
ITV News explains how the global IT outage has affected health services
Thousands of GP practices across England have been affected by a global IT outage that is disrupting businesses and institutions around the world.
The outage has been linked to global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, who said it was “aware of reports of crashes on Windows".
The company's CEO George Kurtz said the issue was caused by a "defect" in a "content update" and was not a security incident or cyber attack.
The outage has caused an issue with the EMIS Web System, which is understood to be used by about 60% of GP practices in England.
Around 3,700 GP practices may be impacted by the outage.
The IT fault has hampered the booking of appointments and issuing of prescriptions, with some pharmacies also affected.
Some GP services said appointments may need to be cancelled or rearranged due to ongoing issues.
EMIS Web enables GP practices to book appointments, examine records and includes a clinical decision support tool as well as helping with admin.
GP surgeries have reported on social media that they are unable to access patient records or book appointments due to the outage.
Pharmacies also reported issues with accessing prescriptions from GP surgeries and said this would affect the delivery of medicines to patients.
NHS England said: “The NHS is aware of a global IT outage and an issue with EMIS, an appointment and patient record system, which is causing disruption in the majority of GP practices.
“The NHS has long-standing measures in place to manage the disruption, including using paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions, and the usual phone systems to contact your GP.
“There is currently no known impact on 999 or emergency services, so people should use these services as they usually would.
“Patients should attend appointments unless told otherwise. Only contact your GP if it’s urgent, and otherwise please use 111 online or call 111.”
GP surgeries hit by the outage have said the issue “will have a big effect”.
Windrush Medical Practice in Witney, Oxfordshire, said it is continuing as normal but urged patients with “routine concerns” to wait until Monday.
Its post on X said: “We’re continuing as normal for urgent enquiries but ask for routine concerns to wait until Monday.
“Please continue to submit your queries through Engage Consult.”
Central Lakes Medical Group in Ambleside wrote on X: “We’re impacted by the IT outage.
“This will have a big effect on us, so apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused, and delays on the phone.”
Another post by Pocklington Group Practice in the East Riding of Yorkshire said: “Due to ongoing Windows issues affecting IT worldwide, the practice is currently unable to function as normal.
“This may result in appointments needing to be cancelled and rearranged. Updates will follow when available.”
A spokesman for the National Pharmacy Association said that due to the outage, services in community pharmacies, including the accessing of prescriptions from GPs and medicine deliveries, are disrupted.
They urged people to be "patient" while visiting their pharamacy.
Salisbury District Hospital said it was also suffering some delays due to the outage.
In Wales, services have been restored. Digital Health and Care Wales, who manage digital services for NHS Wales, said services are "running as normal."
In a statement it said: "Earlier issues affecting some GP services were resolved by 10am this morning and functionality to the NHS Wales App was restored for all users by 12pm.
Some local digital services may be experiencing residual impact from the initial outage. We expect these to return to normal soon.
We apologise for the disruption and thank you for your patience." A Scottish government spokesperson confirmed its IT systems are "functioning normally".“There has minimal impact on NHS services and patients should continue to attend all appointments as planned. There are no major outages reported for NHS Scotland systems", they said.
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