July 19th 2024
This article was originally posted on the NHS Digitising Social Care site.
Please see the latest statement from NHS England on the global IT outage.
If you are a provider impacted by the outage, you should revert to your business continuity plans. Providers who access GP Connect via their Digital Social Care Record should revert to paper ordering for urgent and emergency prescriptions
The NHS is aware of a global IT outage and an issue with EMIS, an appointment and patient record system, which is causing disruption in the majority of GP practices.
The NHS has long standing measures in place to manage the disruption, including using paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions, and the usual phone systems to contact your GP.
There is currently no known impact on 999 or emergency services, so people should use these services as they usually would.
Patients should attend appointments unless told otherwise. Only contact your GP if it’s urgent, and otherwise please use 111 online or call 111.
National Cyber Security Centre – Update at 16.15pm, 19 July 2024
The National Cyber Security Centre has issued a statement advising affected organisations to put in place vendor mitigations. The NCSC is also warning about an increase in related phishing.
Fixes are now available to resolve the issues, and affected organisations should refer to the relevant vendor guidance and take the necessary action.
An increase in phishing referencing this outage has already been observed, as opportunistic malicious actors seek to take advantage of the situation.
More resources
- NHS Digitising Social Care statement
- NHS England statement
- NCSC statement
- Guidance on business continuity planning