GPs left to deal with thousands of duplicate test results following hospital IT failure

GPs in Suffolk were left to deal with thousands of duplicate pathology results following a ‘software failure’ at a hospital trust, which had ‘significant knock-on effects’ on practices.

West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust confirmed to Pulse that 19 of the 24 GP practices in West Suffolk were affected by the incident, which was caused by a ‘third party software failure’. 

GPs told Pulse that they were getting ‘hundreds’ of duplicate results per hour and said that they experienced delays in fixing the issue once it had been flagged.

The failure involved a product used to distribute the results from various diagnostic services out to GP practice management systems, the trust said.

Dr Gwilym Thomas, a GP Partner in Bury St Edmunds, said he had initially flagged the issue when he noticed it, but that the situation was ‘left to worsen’ over two days. At one point his practice had 7,856 pathology or radiology reports that ‘required action’ in its inbox. 

Suffolk LMC said it was ‘unacceptable’ that repeated IT failures, with ‘significant knock-on effects’ for practices, ‘continue to occur’.  

The LMC said the trust would be ‘conducting a review’ into the incident and encouraged affected practices to submit expenses incurred ‘as a result of these debacles’. 

Dr Thomas told Pulse: ‘I was actually the person who flagged the issue of duplicate pathology results coming in on the most recent occasion, at around midday on the Saturday.

‘But things were unfortunately left to worsen until Monday, despite escalation from West Suffolk Hospital to the ICB on Saturday afternoon when it was clear we were still getting hundreds of results an hour and had found out other practices were affected.’

He added that the reasoning for inaction was that the issue ‘needed a specialist IT team’ who were not on call. 

He added: ‘However there was no mention of contingencies or support should we be unable to function as a practice on the Monday morning.  

‘Fortunately, despite us receiving error messages saying that SystemOne performance would be affected, it didn’t cause too many problems on Monday other than the opportunity cost of our admin team having to spend a lot of time removing results from SystemOne.  

‘We didn’t know that would be all in advance though, and my frustration was the lack of effective response.’

The trust told Pulse the issue was resolved on 2 June with ‘confirmation received that lab results were processed early that morning as normal and sent to GP practices via usual processes’. 

In a message to GPs, Suffolk LMC said: ‘The LMC is well aware of the issues relating to duplication of pathology results across West Suffolk and has been in discussion with the system around mitigations.

‘We are clear that it is unacceptable that repeated IT failures – with significant knock-on effects for practices – continue to occur. We would encourage practices to submit expenses incurred as a result of these debacles as soon as possible.’

Pulse has contacted Suffolk and North East Essex ICB for comment.

Earlier this month, Pulse reported on a flawed IT system rollout which led to delayed blood tests and cancelled GP appointments across Nottinghamshire. 

Last year, a ‘critical incident’ caused by IT issues in Nottingham University Hospitals’ pathology service led to patients being asked not to attend phlebotomy appointments.  

And Pulse previously reported on a fault with University Hospital Trust Southampton’s new pathology IT system which caused GPs ‘significant’ workload issues and ‘anxiety’ for patient safety.