Guy's and St Thomas' systems hit by 'ludicrous' heatwave

IT servers at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital Trust stopped working during last week's heatwave

Bosses of two of London's largest hospitals have said its main computer systems were wiped out by "ludicrous" temperatures in the recent heatwave.

Operations at Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals were cancelled as IT servers broke down in record heat on 19 July.

Chief operating officer John Findlay said it was "the most complex" incident at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust "in a very, very long time".

He warned it would take both hospitals a long time to recover.

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Mr Findlay explained on an internal Zoom call to staff seen by the BBC that the trust had to move to "paper" hospitals leading to it declaring a critical incident.

"Although it sounds straightforward to move to a paper hospital clearly that is far from the case when you've got issues going on for an extended period of time," he said.

"It has slowed everything down phenomenally. It's meant people have had to work incredibly hard."

He continued: "That whole manual process of moving pieces of paper around the organisation, recording the interactions with patients, just fundamentally knowing what is going on and what has happened, is clearly a massive challenge.

"The longer it goes on, the greater that challenge is. I absolutely recognise the significance of this and the impact that it has had on people."

One cancer patient, Jennifer, told BBC London she was woken up and almost given the wrong drugs for her treatment while another doctor mistakenly said her appendix had ruptured.

Cancer patient Jennifer said she was told on several occasions that the computers were not working

While the systems have since been restored, problems have remained and may continue into next week, chief executive Ian Abbs said.

He praised staff in the Zoom call for their unrelenting commitment adding that the trust was carrying out an independent external review to establish what happened.

"The past week has been exceptionally difficult for everyone at Guy's and St Thomas'," Mr Abbs explained.

"The first thing is that I want to make a heartfelt and unreserved apology for what has happened. This is not what we expect or want ever to happen.

"This has been one of the most serious incidents we've ever had to deal with, certainly in my long memory at Guy's and St Thomas'."

In the same internal Zoom call, chief digital information officer Beverley Bryant explained the IT systems were knocked out by "ludicrous heat" leading to a failure in the data centre's air-conditioning.

She said: "The servers couldn't handle the heat and they collapsed in an unmanaged and uncoordinated way."

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