Hospital staff and Doctors across Wales have been unable to access patient details today as a widespread failure in computer systems affected the Welsh NHS.
Consultants and GPs said they cannot get blood and X-Ray results because their internal portal is down. The Welsh Government said it was investigating a technical issue at two NHS Wales data centres.
BMA Wales, which represents doctors, also confirmed there had been a crash on NHS computers, which had affected email and intranet services.
“This is under investigation by the NHS Wales Informatics Service and is being dealt with as a priority,” a Welsh Government spokesman added.
The National Cyber Security Centre said the issue affecting the Welsh NHS was not a cyber attack, but the result of technical issues.
A warning on doctors’ computers reads that “Multiple services are affected, especially national services”.
Bangor family GP Dr Catrin Elis Williams described the situation as “very frustrating and rather dangerous”.
Her computer system went down about lunchtime on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately it’s caused us quite a lot of problems with trying to get patients’ results, past medical histories and letters from hospitals. We have seen a few people we can’t help because we can’t get that information.
“The fact the system is down also means staff cannot get phone numbers of patients to contact them and cancel appointments. Other problems include the fact notes from appointments cannot be typed up and saved, meaning there will be a backlog.
“The system has gone down before but only for short periods,” she added. “But it’s been a few hours now and we don’t know when it will be working again. It is causing quite a lot of confusion.”
