Cancer patient faces seven-week wait after cancellation

Ciara Corr said her husband has already waited five weeks for an appointment and will have to wait another seven

A cancer patient who was to undergo his second biopsy this week now faces a seven-week wait because of a major IT incident at the Southern Health Trust.

Most of the trust's planned surgery and out-patient hospital appointments were cancelled on Wednesday and Thursday as a result of the outage, which has now been resolved.

The health minister said the "specific cause of the outage is still being investigated" but all of Friday's surgeries and outpatient appointments will go ahead as planned

Ciara Corr said her husband John has prostate cancer and had already waited five weeks for Wednesday's appointment.

"Now we have to wait another seven weeks because it was cancelled yesterday," she told BBC's The Nolan Show.

"They want to check that it is the same [grade of cancer] or could it be potentially worse than what we have been told already."

Mrs Corr said she and her husband had taken the day off work for the appointment.

"The procedure is not a very pleasant one and my husband had went yesterday all geared up and ready to go, to be told it's cancelled.

"Fair enough, but then to be told seven weeks for another appointment is quite a long time.

"It's very, very stressful."

What went wrong?

Speaking to the BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme, the trust's medical director explained that their data centre and back-up data centre had both failed.

"It's very, very rare for both to go down," Stephen Austin said.

"But the important thing is we have put in place plans to make sure that we provide safe care for the patients that we have under our roof already and that's what we did."

Stephen Austin from the trust said staff were using pens and paper to maintain patient records during the IT outage

Dr Austin said the trust was certain there had not been any kind of cyber attack.

"This is a pure technical issue that we've been working with external partners to resolve," he explained.

"It has been resolved and we are stepping up to full service again over the course of the next few hours this morning.

"We're just making sure we're bringing it back in a phased controlled manner so that it's entirely stable.

"Appointments will be done as soon as possible depending on patients' particular

Digitised patient records 'secure'

Health Minister Mike Nesbitt said he understood "the distress and anxiety felt by many of those who have had appointments or procedures cancelled".

"I have been assured by the trust that it is working at pace to ensure those cancellations are rescheduled as quickly as possible," he added.

Like all other trusts in Northern Ireland, the Southern Trust has recently moved to a new fully digitised system to manage patient records, called encompass.

The minister said that even though the cause was still under investigation, he wanted to "provide reassurance about the resilience of encompass [software]".

"Even during connection issues, an individual's health record remains secure, and continuity of care is protected," he insisted.

IT issues 'have been resolved'

Wednesday's IT incident, which has been resolved, is continuing to affect appointments in the Southern Health Trust, including Daisy Hill hospital in Newry

The IT problem began on Wednesday, and led to ambulances being diverted away from Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry and Craigavon Area Hospital in County Armagh.

The Southern Health Trust covers a number of hospitals and care centres across counties Armagh, Down and Tyrone.

As well as Daisy Hill and Craigavon hospitals, it also runs the South Tyrone Hospital in Dungannon, Lurgan Hospital and St Luke's Hospital in County Armagh.

In its latest statement on Thursday afternoon, the trust said its IT issues "have been resolved and the phased restart is complete".

It added it was "hugely grateful" for the support of the ambulance service, other health trust and the wider health and social care system.

The trust warned it would "take some time for normal business to be fully restored" and it apologised to patients who had been affected by the disruption.

Ambulances were diverted from Craigavon Area Hospital on Wednesday as the incident took place

'It's really unfair'

Naomi Muldrew's partner was due to get a biopsy on Thursday, but that appointment has had to be rescheduled.

He had received a red flag referral meaning he should have been seen within 14 days, but the letter for his first appointment - on 21 August - arrived after that date and the appointment was missed. Wednesday's IT failures have compounded the couple's worries.

"It's really unfair and they're just not very well prepared for anything like this happening," Ms Muldrew told Good Morning Ulster.

"It's just not good enough – people left worrying themselves sick for even longer now."

She said her partner had the day booked off work "and obviously just wanted it done to get some sort of clarity".

"Now he's just left hanging in limbo again."

Heart patient 'happy as Larry'

Gerard McVeigh was pleased that his heart procedure was rescheduled a week later

However one patient who missed out on a planned heart procedure due to the IT outage was surprised by how quickly the trust rescheduled his treatment.

Gerard McVeigh, a 64-year-old retiree from Warrenpoint, has previously suffered two heart attacks and has five stents fitted.

He was due to undergo an investigatory procedure on Thursday and said he was "disappointed" when he got a call to say it had to be postponed.

He immediately phoned his brother, but as soon as he put the phone down, he got another call offering a new appointment next Friday.

"When you get to my age, a week is nothing. It's only seven days," Mr McVeigh said.

"I thought I'd be going to the back of the end of the queue again and restarting the whole schedule over again, so I was happy as Larry."

'Super computer system' is vulnerable, says union

Patrick Mulholland, of the union Nipsa, said the incident showed administration staff were "critically important".

"The people who would have kept the records in the past are being stripped out of the system because we've now got this super computer system instead," he said.

"I think it's been suddenly revealed just how vulnerable that has left the health system.

"So the people who would normally be keeping records etc in a written form – the admin staff – they're not there, so clinical staff are having to scramble around and plug the gaps."

'Resilience of our system'

Diane Dodds said there were concerns about the resilience of the health system

Diane Dodds, a member of Stormont's health committee, called on the health minister to explain whether the incident had any wider implications.

She told Good Morning Ulster: "We really do have to worry about the resilience of our system if such a critical piece of healthcare infrastructure can go down in this kind of catastrophic way.

"I do think the health minister should come to the floor of the assembly and tell us about the resilience of the system.

"Could this happen across a variety of different trusts at different times or at the same time?

"What is the back-up plan?"

Eóin Tennyson raised questions about how critical infrastructure is functioning

Eóin Tennyson, Alliance Party MLA for Upper Bann, told The Nolan Show that the events raised "serious questions about the functionality of critical infrastructure in our health service".

Sinn Féin MLA Linda Dillon welcomed the announcement that there would be a full investigation, saying patients would "rightly be extremely upset and anxious" and they deserved "clarity" about their appointments.

Helpline number

A helpline has been set for patients in the Southern Trust whose appointments or surgery have been postposed as a result of the IT issues.

The number is 028 375 60009 and the lines will be open until 20:00 BST on Thursday.