Data centre failure left practices without SystmOne

A fault at a BT-run data centre left GP practices using TPP’s SystmOne experiencing performance problems with their system for three hours last month.

EHI Primary Care understands that the failure on September 18 affected all TPP’s SystmOne users from early morning until about 11am.

The problem is the second time in just over a year that large numbers of NHS organisations have had access to remotely-hosted systems disrupted in the North of England.

CSC, local service provider for the North Midlands and East (NME) Programme for IT, supplies TPP’s SystmOne to more than 600 practices as part of its contract with CfH and has overall responsibility for the service provided.

A joint statement issued to EHI Primary Care by CSC and TPP said: “On the 18th September during proactive monitoring, TPP became aware of a slow-down in performance for SystmOne clients and fully investigated the issue. The slow-down in performance lasted for three hours, with approximately 10 minutes outage while the affected devices were rebooted to resolve the fault.

"SystmOne is hosted in a data centre provided by BT which was where the issue occurred. The hosting arrangement is between TPP and BT and forms the basis of the SystmOne solution provided by CSC.”

Two SystmOne practices contacted by EHI Primary Care confirmed that they had problems with their systems until about 11am on September 18.

Stephen Blackman, practice manager at the Earls Barton Medical Centre in Northamptonshire, said: “We came in and everything was going slow and we were told it was a national problem to do with BT. It did cause us problems because the system kept collapsing and there was very limited functionality.”

Blackman said the system came back on at about 11am. He added: “It wasn’t a major problem and when we had EMIS before we had similar things where our server went down. Now it can be sorted out remotely so I would still rather be with TPP.”

Dr Mark Shenton, a GP at Stow Health Centre in Newmarket, said he understood the system at his practice had also not been usable for a couple of hours.

He told EHI primary Care: “At the end of the day these things happen and it just involved working in the same way as if there was a cut in the electricity supply. We have got a paper system for if there is ever a computer problem or an electricity supply problem and then the paper is scanned in at the end of the day. You just have to be a bit more vigilant when you see patients.”

A spokesperson for CfH told EHI Primary Care: “It can be confirmed that a fault in the data centre for one of the GP systems caused some performance issues for users of that system for a period of approximately two hours. This was not an N3 fault, or with the N3 connection to the data centre and was diagnosed and remedied by the support teams for that system."

The problem is the second time CSC has been involved in a data centre failure. Last summer 80 trusts including eight acute hospitals were left without access to patient data due to a technical failure at a data centre run by CSC.

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CSC failure leaves 80 trusts without IT systems