Pharmacies and GP surgeries in Burnham-On-Sea and Highbridge were hit by Microsoft’s global IT outage on Friday (July 19th) that disrupted phone lines, prescriptions, and the patient records system.
The IT outage affected Burnham-On-Sea, Highbridge and Berrow medical centres, plus local pharamacies, a spokesman confirmed to Burnham-On-Sea.com.
Posters warning local patients of the disruption were put up in the entrance doors and windows, as pictured here.
Emran Hussain, manager at the Day Lewis pharmacy next to Burnham Medical Centre in Love Lane, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “The IT outage has called disruption to our services and we thank customers for being understanding and being patient. We were still able to handle emergency requests and hope things return to normal soon.”
An NHS Somerset spokesperson said: “The NHS is aware of a global IT outage and an issue with EMIS Web, an appointment, prescription and patient record system used by our GP practices across Somerset.”
“Phone systems in some surgeries are cloud-based, which means they are currently unable to answer calls. If you have a booked appointment and have not been contacted by your surgery, then please attend as usual.”
“If you are unsure where to go, please check NHS online – 111.nhs.uk or call 111 for medical advice. There is currently no known impact on 999 or emergency services, so people should use these services as they usually would.”
“Services in community pharmacies, including accessing prescriptions from GPs and medicine deliveries, are disrupted. The NHS has long-standing measures in place to manage the disruption, including using paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions. Thank you for your patience with our staff.”
Thousands of GP practices across England have been affected by the global IT outage, which has hampered the booking of appointments and issuing of prescriptions.
NHS England said there was an issue with its EMIS Web system, which is understood to be used by about 60% of practices in England. Around 3,700 GP practices may be affected in England.
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. EMIS Web is the most widely used clinical system for primary care in the UK.
It enables GP practices to book appointments, examine records and includes a clinical decision support tool as well as helping with admin.
