Global IT outages are causing serious problems for the NHS, including GP surgeries, with some being forced to turn away patients with routine appointments and only see those classed as emergencies.
Family doctor’s offices are experiencing major disruption because they cannot access patient records or refer them for tests or appointments at their local hospital.
“Our members are telling us that today’s outage is causing significant disruption to GP practice bookings and IT systems,” said Professor Kamila Hawthorne, Chair of the Royal College of GPs.
“Outages like this affect our access to important clinical information about our patients, as well as our ability to book tests, recommend them and inform the most appropriate treatment plan.”
The inability of surgeries to provide the usual range of care is likely to lead to a backlog of patients who either need to be seen by a GP, hospital care or both.
It could also lead to some people seeking help in already strained A&E units.
Pharmacies were also affected, many of which were unable to provide patients with the medicines they needed as quickly as usual due to delays in receiving prescriptions from GPs due to Windows operating system outages.
Some hospitals have also had to cut back on some types of care, including radiotherapy. The Royal Surrey NHS trust declared a “critical incident” earlier on Friday as outages hit the IT system it uses, canceling radiotherapy appointments it was supposed to deliver to cancer patients.
In a statement, he said: “Royal Surrey has declared a critical incident due to external IT issues that are widely affecting services including ours.
“This problem affected Varian, the IT system we use to deliver radiotherapy. This means that we are currently unable to provide our planned radiotherapy treatments. We have contacted our patients scheduled for radiotherapy this morning to reschedule their appointments while we work to resolve these issues.”
However, he later said that radiotherapy appointments due to take place on Friday afternoon would go ahead, but also that “there is still some disruption to the radiotherapy system which may affect the appointments taking place next week”.
About 3,700 GP practices in England are believed to have been affected, news agency PA Media reported. These are 60% of practices that use a patient record and order system called EMIS, which is not working normally today. “EMIS is down,” said one GP source.
Matt, a 24-year-old student from London, had a GP appointment at 9am on Friday as he needed a prescription for antibiotics for an acute ear infection, but the appointment fell through as the clinic was closed.
“In 20 minutes I got a call saying I should come back and that I would be able to get the prescription online but I couldn’t get it online and now the GP clinic isn’t taking calls. I have a severe headache.”
Matt said he returned to the clinic a third time hoping to pick up the paper prescription in person, but was told that was not possible.
“They are not able to issue a physical prescription because they don’t have physical forms because everything is done online. They told me I might have to wait for someone to come and deliver them, [before saying] they cannot issue them at all.” he said.
“I was advised that I could go to a private GP practice and that they might have the appropriate form, otherwise I would have to wait until Monday to receive [a prescription]. They said I can try A&E but they are not sure about the waiting time as they don’t know which systems are down where.’
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Sophie, from Bolton, has stage two breast cancer and was due to undergo chemotherapy at the health center on Friday midday. “I have treatment every Friday but they called me this morning and said ‘don’t come until we call you’.” My drugs are made for me in a lab, and that lab uses Windows, so they don’t have the drugs.”
Sophie, who is 46, was due to change her medication next week and is unsure how missing Friday’s chemotherapy and the IT blackout may affect the rest of her treatment.
“There will be people who will have chemotherapy two to three days in a row, and that could have a big impact on them because we don’t know how long it will last.” she said. “Of course you don’t want to miss any treatment, it feels important.
Pharmacy operators, who are dealing with people with minor illnesses who cannot make GP appointments, have asked the public for patience as they try to overcome problems with the supply of medicines.
Dr Leyla Hannbeck, chief executive of the Association of Independent Pharmacies, said: “Pharmacies are experiencing delays in getting prescriptions through GP systems as the systems are down, and there are also delays in receiving medicines in stock due to some wholesalers experiencing IT failures system. .
“As the GP ordering system does not work, more and more patients are being sent to pharmacies for minor ailments.
“We ask the public to be patient if there are delays as these issues are beyond our control and we are doing everything we can to ensure patients receive their medication and treatment.”
NHS England said: “The NHS is aware of the global IT outage and issue with EMIS, the patient appointment and record system, which is causing disruption to most GP surgeries.
“The NHS has long-standing measures in place to deal with breaches, including the use of paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions and the usual telephone systems.”