Third of English pharmacy drug supplies hit by outage

A global IT outage hit one-third of drug deliveries to pharmacies in England, as thousands of GP practices were affected and hospitals across the country declared critical incidents.

- REBECCA THOMAS

GPs, pharmacies and NHS 111 services across the country suffered major disruption on Friday after an update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike crashed Microsoft Windows systems. The IT bug hit the Emis IT system used by around 60 per cent of GP practices - 3,700 - to access patient records, book appointments and issue prescriptions.

According to the National Pharmacy Association, one-third of deliveries in pharmacies across England were hit after a major wholesaler declared it had been affected by the issues. Although deliveries have resumed in many areas, the issue is expected to impact pharmacies into early next week, it said yesterday.

Meanwhile, several NHS services nationwide, including five NHS trusts, were forced to declare critical incidents due to the disruption.