How Microsoft outage could affect GPs, airports and pay this week

James Hockaday
File photo dated 10/09/14 of a doctor checking a patient's blood pressure in his practice room at the Temple Fortune Health Centre GP Practice near Golders Green, London. Doctors will be required to give patients options including travelling further for healthcare or going to private alternatives as Rishi Sunak tries to fulfil his promise to cut NHS waiting times. GPs will be compelled to offer up to five healthcare providers when clinically appropriate, allowing patients to select their preference using the NHS app or website. Issue date: Thursday May 25, 2023.
GPs have warned that disruption could continue through the week. (Getty Images) (Anthony Devlin, PA Images)

GPs have warned that normal service at surgeries "cannot be resumed immediately" as the global Crowdstrike IT outage continues to have a knock-on effect.

The crash on Friday saw computer systems taken offline at a range of institutions, with flights cancelled at airports, delays for people collecting urgent prescriptions from pharmacies, and shops unable to take card payments.

While cybersecurity company Crowdstrike says it had identified the problem that affected 8.5 million Windows devices, Dr David Wrigley of the British Medical Association (BMA) has said doctors are still facing a "considerable backlog".

In a statement on Sunday, he said: “Friday was one the toughest single days in recent times for GPs across England. Without a clinical IT system many were forced to return to pen and paper to be able to serve their patients. While GPs and their teams worked hard to look after as many as they could, without access to the information they needed much of the work has had to be shifted into the coming week."

Here, Yahoo News takes a look at all of the services likely to face delays and disruption in the coming week.

“GPs have been pulling out all the stops this weekend to deal with the effects of Friday's catastrophic loss of service," said Dr Wrigley.

He warned that the temporary loss of Egton Medical Information Systems (EMIS) patient record systems has meant surgeries are still facing a "considerable backlog".

"Even if we could guarantee it could be fully fixed on Monday GPs would still need time to catch up from lost work over the weekend," Dr Wrigley said, adding that NHS England should "make it clear to patients that normal service cannot be resumed immediately".

He added: “The BMA’s GP committee will continue our dialogue with both EMIS and NHSE, both to make sure that the coming week can be used to recover as quickly as possible and to urgently work on securing a better system of IT backup so that this disaster is not repeated in future.”

An NHS England spokesperson said on Saturday afternoon that while systems were "coming back online in most areas, they were "still running slightly slower than usual".

“As practices recover from the loss of IT systems on Friday, there may be some continued disruption, particularly to GP services, in some areas into next week as practices work to rebook appointments," they added.

Airports across the UK, including London Gatwick, Heathrow Airport, Manchester Airport and Belfast International Airport, said passengers should check with airlines for any delays or cancellations before travelling over the weekend.

Transport secretary Louise Haigh said on Saturday the IT systems of UK airports and train operators are “back up and working as normal”, but “some delays and a small number of cancelled flights” were expected.

While airlines are largely back up and running now, travel journalist Simon Calder, writing on X around 3pm, said easyJet cancellations to and from Gatwick has "just doucled from 24 to 48", while Aer Lingus had cancelld two Heathrow-Dublin round trips.

Passengers sit and wait at London Gatwick Airport, Crawley, east Sussex, following delays amid reports of widespread IT outages affecting airlines, broadcasters and banks. Picture date: Friday July 19, 2024.
Passengers sitting and waiting at Gatwick Airport on Friday. (Alamy) (Ben Bauer, PA Images)

In a report he wrote for the Independent, he said Tui has resorted to cancelling entire package holidays in order to manage the scale of the problem.

One passenger who had been waiting to fly from Manchester Airport to Lanzarote at 6am on Sunday was told at noon that her entire holiday had been cancelled.

Citing analytics firm Cirium, Calder said that as of 10.30am Sunday, a further 88 flights had been cancelled, bringing the total for the weekend to over 600 in the UK, compared to nearly 12,000 worldwide.

While many services are back up and running, this suggests passengers haven't quite seen the end of the disruption just yet.

On Saturday Nick Kaye, chair of the National Pharmacy Association, said on Saturday that systems were "by and large back online" and that "medicine deliveries have resumed".

However, he said the outage "will have caused backlogs" and expected services to "continue to be disrupted this weekend as pharmacies recover".

Yahoo News has asked the National Pharmacy Association if it expects disruption to continue over the coming days.

A trainee pharmacy staff member orders medications in drawers and shelves at the Monklands University Hospital, in Aidrie, Lanarkshire, during a visit by Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on the launch of the Scottish Apprenticeship Week. See PA story SCOTLAND Apprenticeship. Photo credit should read: Andy Buchanan/PA Wire
Pharmacies are still currently facing a backlog. (PA) (Andy Buchanan, PA Images)

Workers who are paid weekly may be impacted by the Crowdstrike outage.

Melanie Pizzey, chief executive officer and founder of the Global Payroll Association, said: “We’ve been contacted by numerous clients already today who have been unable to access their payroll software due to the Microsoft outage and others who have been urged to log out with immediate effect.

“Depending on the length of this outage, it could have very serious implications for businesses across the nation, particularly those who process payroll on a weekly basis.

“Furthermore, we could see a backlog with regard to processing payrolls for the coming month end which may delay employees from receiving their monthly wage. At best, it will require those managing payroll to work overtime to rectify the issue."

Some banking services were also affected, but now appear to be largely back to normal. Other payments services, banks and financial institutions sought to reassure customers that their systems were running without disruption.

Link, which runs the UK’s network of ATM cash machines, said its network is “working normally but enhanced monitoring is in place as a precaution.”

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