Our response to global IT issues affecting various NHS systems, including pharmacies and GPs

We have issued the following statements in response to the disruption affecting various IT systems worldwide, including EMIS and the electronic prescription service systems used by NHS community pharmacies and GP practices in England.

Latest statement (issued on Monday 22nd July)

Alastair Buxton, Director of NHS Services at Community Pharmacy England, said:

“The EMIS pharmacy and GP IT system issues that hit on Friday – linked to a much wider global outage – caused frustration and concern for both pharmacy teams and their patients. EMIS have told us that the issues with their systems are now resolved on the whole, but we encourage any pharmacies still experiencing problems to contact their supplier.

“Whilst the initial impact of the outage is now over, it will take time for the resulting backlog of workload to be cleared, as electronic prescriptions start to flow again. This is not the first time that pharmacy teams have been adversely affected by IT problems outside of their control and they are often on the receiving end of public frustration. Community Pharmacy England continues to seek to ensure that the sector is appropriately supported and their efforts recognised when situations such as this occur.”

Our initial statement (issued on Friday 19th July)

Our Director of NHS Services, Alastair Buxton, said:

“NHS England has issued a communication to highlight that the global IT issue, which is affecting multiple IT systems across the world, is also causing disruption to some users of EMIS IT systems.

This includes GP practices using the EMIS Web GP IT system and some users of the community pharmacy EMIS ProScript EPS system are also being affected.

Where a pharmacy IT system is unavailable, the pharmacy owner will activate relevant parts of their business continuity plan, but it will inevitably result in delays to them being able to access and dispense prescriptions from the NHS Electronic Prescription Service.

GP practices that cannot access their IT system will also be activating their business continuity plans, which is likely to include issuing hand-written prescriptions where there is an urgent need for a medicine, rather than the normal use of the NHS Electronic Prescription Service.

People who are urgently seeking a supply of a prescription medicine should contact their general practice. If that is not possible, they can seek assistance from 111 online or the NHS 111 phone service, which may result in them being referred to a pharmacy where the pharmacist will assess whether an emergency supply of a medicine can be made under the Pharmacy First service. ”

Read our news story for further information.