Hospitals urge patients to attend as normal during IT outage

The Christie cancer hospital in Manchester is among those which have urged patients to attend as normal, unless told otherwise

Hospitals across the North West have urged patients to attend as normal during the worldwide IT outage.

The outage has impacted IT systems in healthcare services across the region.

Hospitals including the Countess of Chester and the Royal Liverpool have shared a message from NHS England advising people to attend appointments unless told otherwise.

NHS England said there was currently no known impact on emergency services.

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"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," an NHS England spokesperson said.

They advised people to only contact their GP if it was urgent, and otherwise to use the 111 online service or call 111.

In a statement issued via X, Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said: "Please be aware of this global IT issue today which is affecting healthcare and other services.

"Services may be busier and you may have to wait longer to be seen."

'Monitoring the situation'

The Christie cancer hospital in Manchester confirmed it had been impacted, saying it was "expected to have a small impact on chemotherapy and immunotherapy services and some internal hospital systems".

A spokesperson said patients attending for systemic anti-cancer treatments should attend as normal unless they have been contacted in advance by the team.

"All other patients who have an appointment should attend as usual," they added.

They apologised for any inconvenience or delays, adding that they were working with their suppliers and partners to resolve the issue and had plans in place to mitigate the disruption.

Further updates would be published on The Christie's website and social media channels.

A spokesperson for Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, whose hospitals include the Royal Preston, also reiterated the message from NHS England.

They said hospital trusts in Lancashire and South Cumbria asked people to continue to attend hospital appointments unless they were contacted and told otherwise.

The outage has also affected "a small number" of applications at Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust.

Abigail Harrison, chief digital and infrastructure officer, said: "Business continuity plans have been put in place to ensure we can support patients while the issue is resolved.

"We will continue to monitor the situation and communicate with our partners."

Microsoft has said the outage began at about 18:00 ET (23:00 BST) on Thursday and was taking "mitigation actions" after service issues, the AFP news agency has reported.

The BBC has approached hospital trusts for comment.