Disruption to GPs caused by a global IT outage may continue into the coming week, NHS England has said.A spokesman for the health service told the BBC that digital systems for GPs and pharmacies had been restored “in most areas” – but that surgeries would have to work through a backlog of appointments.Practices across the UK have had to cancel routine appointments because of the issue, while pharmacies have been unable to access digital prescription records.Friday’s outage – which also sparked major issues in the travel and banking sectors, among others – was caused by a faulty update to CrowdStrike antivirus software, which crashed Microsoft systems.CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the issue had been fixed on Friday – but admitted that it could take “some time” for some computer systems to be restored. The NHS England spokesman said: “As practices recover from the loss of IT systems on Friday, there may be some continued disruption, particularly to GP services, in some areas into next week as practices work to rebook appointments.”The advice for Monday remains that patients should attend appointments as normal unless told otherwise.”The comments come after some healthcare workers said they were still struggling to access digital systems, and expressed concerns that continued IT difficulties could exacerbate appointment backlogs.Dr Sarah Jane Cowley, a GP in North London, told the BBC that her practice was still unable to make appointments and see certain test results, describing the situation as “not sustainable for very long”.Dr Fari Ahmad – a GP based in Wilmslow in Cheshire – told BBC Breakfast: “It’s all going to bui …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnDisruption to GPs caused by a global IT outage may continue into the coming week, NHS England has said.A spokesman for the health service told the BBC that digital systems for GPs and pharmacies had been restored “in most areas” – but that surgeries would have to work through a backlog of appointments.Practices across the UK have had to cancel routine appointments because of the issue, while pharmacies have been unable to access digital prescription records.Friday’s outage – which also sparked major issues in the travel and banking sectors, among others – was caused by a faulty update to CrowdStrike antivirus software, which crashed Microsoft systems.CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the issue had been fixed on Friday – but admitted that it could take “some time” for some computer systems to be restored. The NHS England spokesman said: “As practices recover from the loss of IT systems on Friday, there may be some continued disruption, particularly to GP services, in some areas into next week as practices work to rebook appointments.”The advice for Monday remains that patients should attend appointments as normal unless told otherwise.”The comments come after some healthcare workers said they were still struggling to access digital systems, and expressed concerns that continued IT difficulties could exacerbate appointment backlogs.Dr Sarah Jane Cowley, a GP in North London, told the BBC that her practice was still unable to make appointments and see certain test results, describing the situation as “not sustainable for very long”.Dr Fari Ahmad – a GP based in Wilmslow in Cheshire – told BBC Breakfast: “It’s all going to bui …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
