Computer crash hits hospital trusts

Opposition MPs have condemned a serious computer system failure that affected 80 NHS hospital trusts.

Some health staff in the North West and West Midlands were left unable to check appointments and access patient administration details on-screen.

NHS Connecting for Health, which runs the Government's controversial IT programme, said there had been "serious interruption" to computer systems since Sunday morning. A spokesman stressed that the problem - caused by equipment failure - had not put patients at risk and no data had been lost.

He said: "The issues are administrative, such as dealing with admissions, patient tracking, the transfer of in-patient waiting lists and out-patient appointments. It is not about clinical information."

But Liberal Democrat health spokesman Steve Webb said: "It is very alarming that trusts are reporting practical problems with a multi-billion-pound IT system.

"The NHS cannot rely on a computer system that is only right most of the time. If medical information is not available or supplied in error, then the effect on patients can be fatal. Serious questions must be asked about whether the proper safeguards were put in place before this system went online."

The problem affected trusts in Birmingham and the Black Country, Cheshire and Merseyside, Cumbria and Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Shropshire and Staffordshire and the southern part of the West Midlands.

It related to the administration side of the new, multi-billion-pound NHS Programme for IT, which is aimed at linking more than 30,000 GPs to nearly 300 hospitals by 2014.

The new service includes an online booking system, a centralised medical records system for 50 million patients, e-prescriptions and fast computer network links between NHS bodies.

Adrian McDermott, deputy chief information officer for NHS North West, said the computer problem meant medical staff had not been able to check hospital appointments on screen, but were having to do the work manually, through lists on paper. He said the system crash had not resulted in any medical emergencies and it had not affected the computer system that allows doctors to look up the medical records of patients.