IT outage knocks out GP appointment systems, records and phones across whole ICB

The ‘majority’ of GP practices in Kent and Medway were unable to access patient records, appointment systems and telephone systems today, after a ‘major IT outage’.

NHS Kent and Medway ICB announced earlier that there was a ‘multi-site network disruption affecting GP practices across multiple regions’, thought to be caused by a ‘connectivity performance problem within a datacentre’.

In its first update, the ICB said: ‘The issue has been identified as a connectivity performance problem within a datacentre. This is adversely impacting GP practices and other connected sites across multiple regions.

‘Reported effects include slow network performance and loss of access to services hosted at the datacentre, including Always On Virtual Private Network (AOVPN).’

This afternoon, the ICB confirmed the disruption was ongoing and there was ‘potential for these to continue tomorrow morning’.

NHS South, Central and West (SCW) outlined steps for staff at affected GP practices including printing tomorrow’s patient appointment lists in case there were issues accessing PCs tomorrow.

In a press release addressing the outage, Kent LMC said staff were ‘unable to access patient records, medication histories, appointment systems or telephone systems’.

The LMC added that it had ‘repeatedly raised concerns about the resilience and safety risks’ of GP IT systems in the Kent and Medway ICB area ‘following multiple outages across the region over the past year’.

It predicted the impact of the outage would continue ‘for many days’ after systems are restored ‘as practices work to catch up’.