GP surgeries across Northern Ireland are facing extra pressure this week as staff work to address a backlog caused by a global IT outage.
Dr Frances O’Hagan, the chair of the BMA’s general medical practitioners committee said she expected Monday to be “a particularly busy day” for practices as they dealt with the aftermath of Friday’s computer problems, caused by a flawed software update from the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
Hospitals and around two-thirds of GP practices in Northern Ireland were affected by the IT crisis, which also caused flight disruption for passengers hoping to return to Belfast over the weekend.
Dr O’Hagan explained that a key online system to access and update patients’ clinical records had crashed, leaving with it “a considerable backlog of work” that would have to be dealt with this week.
“This will of course put considerable strain on general practice, however, staff will continue to provide care to the best of their ability,” she said.
“Whilst these systems return online, I would appeal to anyone accessing their GP to be patient while staff do their upmost to address this backlog of work.
“To ensure such an outage does not have a similar impact in the future, one that forced many surgeries to return to pen and paper to be able to serve their patients, we would call for more investment from the Department of Health in contingency planning and recovery plans.”
Health Minister Mike Nesbitt also thanked healthcare staff who worked over the weekend to address and resolve “these most unexpected challenges”.
A statement from the Department of Health confirmed that no cyber attack was suspected and that no core operated HSC infrastructure or systems were impacted.
In total, three major hospital systems and one GP system were affected: Epic Electronic Care Record, Varian Radiotherapy System, Allocate eRostering System and the EMIS GP System which is also used in prison healthcare services.
While backup plans were put in place to prioritise the most vulnerable GP patients, the department said a more definitive statement on the full impact of the disruption would be be issued in the coming days.
