Microsoft outage: GPs warn to expect more disruption from the IT glitch that even led to surgeries for brain cancer being cancelled as patient groups hit out at NHS’s ‘digital first’ model [Video]

08:09 EDT 22 Jul 2024, updated 11:20 EDT 22 Jul 2024

Patients could struggle to get appointments, prescriptions and test results this week due to the ongoing fallout from Microsoft‘s global outage on Friday.

NHS bosses, medics and pharmacists said while the worst of the crisis was behind them they expect the backlog from the outage, which grounded flights, health systems and some businesses to a halt last week, to impact services for some time. 

Some patients, including those with cancer, have also had vital surgeries delayed by up to a week due to surgeons being unable to perform operations on Friday.

It comes as patient groups told MailOnline the whole fiasco had shown the fragility of the ‘digital first’ approach to health services, and it was ‘crazy’ no back-up plans had been in place before the outage.

They said patients were likely still trying to navigate lengthy GP telephone queues today to find out what has happened to …