Microsoft outage affects NHS and UK police — BBC News
A global outage affecting some Microsoft platforms has disrupted healthcare services, police, pharmacies, parliament and educational institutions in the United Kingdom. NHS England patients are advised to attend scheduled appointments unless they have been told they are cancelled, BBC News reports.
Delays in medical services
An NHS spokesperson said England’s hospital trusts are introducing measures to minimise disruptions to critical services. NHS Alliance chief executive Kieran Devane said the outage had affected some NHS services, including email.
Patients are advised to call 999 in an emergency and, in other cases, contact the 111 service, the 111 online service or a local pharmacy. Some GP practices asked patients to temporarily refrain from sending messages through their websites and to call or attend in person for urgent matters.
The National Pharmacy Association warned that pharmacies are finding it more difficult to contact GP practices and some patients. As a result, waiting times may be longer, and some prescriptions may be delayed.
The GMB union reported a serious impact on ambulance services and NHS trusts. According to the union, 111 and 999 staff are unable to transfer patient data in the usual way, creating a significant backlog of requests, although calls concerning urgent and life-threatening cases are unlikely to have been affected.
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Police and public services
London’s Metropolitan Police, Greater Manchester Police, North Yorkshire Police, South Wales Police and Dyfed-Powys Police reported possible problems with online forms. People with urgent but non-emergency enquiries were urged to call 101. Police Scotland also warned of possible delays in responding to forms submitted over the past 24 hours.
Members of Parliament cannot access their parliamentary accounts, although alternative arrangements have been introduced for Parliament’s work. The government is assessing the impact of the outage on its systems. Meanwhile, Heathrow, Manchester and Stansted airports are operating normally, while the operations of British intelligence services have reportedly not been affected.
Cause of the outage
Microsoft said the problem was caused by higher-than-usual server load. The company reported “early signs of stabilisation” in its systems, while work to resolve the fault continues. Microsoft and cybersecurity experts ruled out a cyberattack as the cause of the incident, which affected Outlook, Teams and Copilot.
Royal Mail also reported that some online services were unavailable, and that delivery notifications could be delayed or not sent. However, the acceptance and delivery of postal items continues as normal.
