Microsoft outage: More misery as GPs warn of another WEEK of disruption and criticise NHS bosses who pushed ‘digital first’ model, leaving practices hampered when computer systems failed

Patients may have difficulty getting appointments, prescriptions and test results this week due to the ongoing fallout from Microsoft’s global outage on Friday.

NHS leaders, doctors and pharmacists said the worst of the crisis was behind them but they expected the backlog from the disruption that halted flights, shut down health systems and closed some businesses last week to continue to impact services for some time.

Patient groups have told MailOnline that the whole fiasco shows the fragility of the ‘digital first’ approach to health services and that it was ‘crazy’ that there were no contingency plans in place before the outage.

They said patients were likely still in long queues at their GPs this morning waiting to hear what happened to cancelled appointments and test results.

GP practices were hardest hit by last week’s global IT outage, with two-thirds of practices believed to be down. NHS hospitals were not spared, with some chemotherapy and radiotherapy services also affected.

NHS bosses, doctors and pharmacists said that while the worst of the crisis is behind them, they expect the backlog from the disruption that grounded flights last week, paralysing health systems and some businesses, will continue to impact services for some time.

Some patients even told this website that they were unable to get life-saving medications.

An NHS England spokesman said the biggest issues from the crisis had now been resolved.

“The systems are now back online and patients who have an NHS appointment this week can continue to attend as normal unless asked not to do so,” the spokespeople said.

However, delays are still expected.

‘Thanks to the hard work of NHS staff during this incident, we hope to keep further disruption to a minimum. However, there may still be delays until services are restored, particularly as GPs have to reschedule appointments, so please bear with us for a little longer,’ staff said.

The doctors’ union British Medical Association (BMA) also reported that general practitioner care is likely to be affected for some time to come.

Dr David Wrigley, vice-chair of the union’s GP committee, said: ‘Friday was one of the toughest days in recent memory for GPs across England.

‘Without a clinical IT system, many were forced to revert to pen and paper to help their patients.

‘Although GPs and their teams worked hard to treat as many patients as possible, much of the work had to be postponed to the following week because they did not have the necessary information.’

GP services across the country were hit hard by the Microsoft outage, as they relied on the EMIS system.

General practitioners use this system to make appointments, view patient data, order prescriptions and make referrals.

It is estimated that around 3,700 GP practices in England have been affected by the outage, around two-thirds of all primary care providers in the country.

According to Dr Wrigley, the consequences of the problems are likely to disrupt primary care for some time to come.

‘The temporary loss of the EMIS patient file system has created a significant backlog,’ he said.

‘Even if we can guarantee that the problem will be fully resolved by Monday, GPs will still need time to catch up on work missed over the weekend. Furthermore, NHS England needs to make it clear to patients that normal services cannot be resumed straight away.’

He added that the BMA is now calling on EMIS, the company that operates the eponymous system, and NHS bosses to urgently work on ‘securing a better IT backup system so that this disaster does not happen again in the future’.

Nick Kaye, chairman of the National Pharmacy Association, which represents independent pharmacies in the UK, also said their services were likely to suffer as a result of the backlog.

“As pharmacists recover from last week’s IT outage and clear the backlog of prescriptions, we expect service in some pharmacies to be slower than normal today,” he said.

‘Please be patient with your local pharmacy team if you visit them as they may still be prioritising urgent prescriptions from their local GP practices and are experiencing increased demand as services return to normal.’

Dennis Reed of Silver Voices, a patient action group for older Britons campaigning for better access to GPs, said the ongoing disruption showed the dangers of the NHS relying too much on a “digital first” service.

“It shows the fragmentary and archaic aspects of the NHS’s computer systems,” he said.

“It seems to me that there is a systematic lack of resilience. If it takes the rest of this week for things to get back to normal, that is a sign that there are no contingency plans for these kinds of situations.

‘The over-reliance on digital healthcare has left those involved holding the baby.’

He added that it is “crazy” that the NHS has no system in place to deal with such IT failures.

“There were doctors and receptionists available, but it was not possible to make appointments because people no longer know how to keep manual records. If the computer is not working, they cannot work,” he said.

“It’s a crazy situation when you have an essential service like the NHS.

“This needs to be resolved so it never happens again.”

Mr Reed said many patients will still be trying to contact their GP to find out what has happened with appointments and tests for conditions or symptoms they are concerned about amid the ongoing disruption.

“This will cause enormous inconvenience to patients,” he said.

‘Their appointments have been cancelled and they are probably still trying to get in touch by phone to find out what is going on.

‘It just goes to show how difficult it is to get a fast and timely service from the NHS these days.’

Passengers queue at check-in desks for British Airways flights at London Gatwick this morning

He joined the BMA in calling for a back-up system for GP services to be put in place quickly to minimise such disruption in the future, saying it was ‘long overdue’ to introduce such a safeguard.

NHS England was unable to provide data on the number of appointments and treatments affected by Friday’s IT outage.

One of the patients whose appointment was cancelled was Chantelle Mooney, 41, who was scheduled to undergo major surgery to remove a golf ball-sized tumor in her brain.

Ms Mooney was diagnosed with terminal stage 4B cervical cancer in February 2022, with metastases to her lungs.

Three weeks ago she was told that a 4cm mass had also been found in her brain after she started experiencing weakness on one side.

Mrs Mooney arrived at the Royal Preston Hospital in Lancashire on Friday morning, expected to undergo surgery at 10am.

However, she said her surgeon told her the surgery could be delayed due to the Microsoft outage. Doctors now rely on Microsoft’s software for scans, emergency medications, access to medical records and more.

After waiting all morning to see if the problem would be resolved, Mrs Mooney was told at 1.30pm that the operation would not go ahead and would be postponed until next Friday.

The IT outage, which began late Thursday night, caused Windows computers to suddenly shut down, causing departure boards at airports to suddenly go blank, flights to be grounded and TV channels and banks to go offline.

Sky News viewers were met with a static message on their TVs at 6am on Friday apologising for the service’s “interruption” when broadcasts were supposed to have started.

It read: ‘We apologise for the interruption of this broadcast. We hope to restore the Sky News broadcast shortly.’

Airline Ryanair was also affected by the problem. On its website, passengers were urged to arrive at the airport three hours earlier. The airline blamed a ‘third party IT issue, which is outside Ryanair’s control and which affects all airlines in its network’.

Flights were hit again today, with dozens of trips cancelled at airports across England

Today, ten flights were cancelled at Heathrow, eleven at London City, ten at Gatwick and six at Manchester as airlines tried to get their flight schedules back on track.

A total of 38 flights were cancelled at airports in England during the day, with British Airways and easyJet accounting for the majority with 18 and 10 flights respectively.

The groups that were cut included people from European cities such as Rome, Berlin and Zurich, as well as Jamaica and American cities such as Las Vegas and New York.

George Kurtz is the CEO of CrowdStrike, which protects some of the world’s largest brands from Internet viruses

US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has admitted that a faulty update from them was responsible for the bug that led to the outage.

Microsoft itself reported that the CrowdStrike update affected 8.5 million Windows devices.

According to the company, this represents less than 1 percent of all Windows computers.

“While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impact reflects the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that operate many mission-critical services,” the statement said.

“This incident demonstrates the interconnectedness of our broad ecosystem: global cloud providers, software platforms, security vendors, and other software vendors and customers.

“It’s also a reminder of how important it is for all of us in the technology ecosystem to prioritize safe deployment and disaster recovery using existing mechanisms.”

George Kurtz, the CEO of CrowdStrike, has apologized for the issues caused by the update, saying he is “deeply sorry” and stressing that it is “not a security or cyber incident.”