Streeting urges patients to ‘be patient’ with GPs as power cut causes major disruption

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has urged people to “be patient” with their GPs amid a major IT outage that has caused “significant disruption” to appointments and other services.

Thousands of GP practices have been affected, with NHS England confirming there was an issue with the EMIS Web system, which is used by around 60% of GP practices in England.

There were also problems with the administrative system in some hospitals, and some ambulance services reported an increase in demand.

Pharmacies have also been hit, with the National Pharmaceutical Association warning that disruptions are likely to last through the weekend, even when systems are restored, as pharmacies grapple with a backlog of medicines.

The PA news agency understands that around 3,700 GP practices could be affected. People trying to access the NHS app have also encountered problems.

In a post on X, Mr Streeting wrote: “This is particularly impacting on GP visits and electronic prescribing.

“We ask for understanding for family doctors if they struggle with this problem with normal blood pressure.”

An NHS England spokesman said: “The NHS has long had measures in place to manage disruption, including the use of paper medical records and handwritten prescriptions, as well as regular telephone systems to contact your GP.

“There is currently no information about any impact on 999 or the emergency services, so people should use these services as normal.

“There are also some issues with administrative systems in hospitals, meaning staff are having to work manually using paper documents to complete some tasks, but care continues as normal in most hospitals.

“Patients should attend their appointments unless told otherwise. Only contact your GP if it is urgent, otherwise use 111 online or call 111.”

Medical practices reported problems with accessing patient records and scheduling appointments due to the power outage.

Professor Kamila Hawthorne, president of the Royal College of GPs, said: “Our members are telling us that today’s power cut is causing significant disruption to GP practice appointment bookings and IT systems – practices using EMIS appear to be particularly hard hit.

“These power outages impact our access to important clinical information about our patients, as well as our ability to schedule tests, make referrals, and inform the most appropriate treatment plan.”

She asked patients to “try to wait” until the outage was resolved if their problem was not urgent.

EMIS Web is the most popular clinical system for primary care in the UK.

It enables medical practices to schedule appointments, review records, and also includes tools to support clinical decision-making and administrative matters.

Following the outage, the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust declared a critical incident due to disruption to radiotherapy services.

Patients who were due to start treatment on Friday morning were contacted to arrange a new date.

A statement on the hospital website said the “hospital is currently able to provide radiotherapy services and this afternoon’s appointments will go ahead as planned.”

However, it warned that disruptions could affect meetings next week.

A spokesman for Salisbury District Hospital, which has also been affected, told PA: “The challenge is our patient administration system. This has meant we have moved to manual registration of new patients.

“That’s in emergency, maternity and other frontline services where people come directly to the hospital. That process is now slow, not digital.”

They said the IT issues have not affected outpatients and appointments are going on as normal. They are not currently short-staffed, but shifts are being assigned using paper systems.

In another post on X, formerly Twitter, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust said the outage had “impacted some of our systems which in turn is impacting some clinical services”.

West Herts Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which includes Watford General, Hemel Hempstead and St Albans City Hospitals, said the impact on services it provides was “minor”.

Many ambulance services have seen an increase in demand for 999 and NHS 111 services, including the London Ambulance Service (LAS), South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS), South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) and North East Ambulance Service (NEAS).

By 2pm on Friday, the company had received a third more calls than usual in a 24-hour period, according to LAS’s chief executive.

Daniel Elkeles said: “Following the global IT outage which has affected some NHS services in the capital, our call handlers and ambulance crews have been incredibly busy as call volumes to our 999 and 111 emergency services have increased significantly.

“In fact, by 2pm we had received more than 3,000 calls to 999 and 3,000 calls to our 111 number – that’s a third more than we usually receive in a full 24 hours.”

SECAmb made clear most of its infrastructure was unaffected but it was unable to access some external NHS services and declared a “business continuity incident”.

Pharmacies have reported problems accessing prescriptions from GPs and said this could impact on the delivery of medicines to patients.

According to the Independent Pharmacies Association, patients with “minor ailments” are also being referred from GP surgeries to pharmacies.