Global IT outage disrupting NHS ’caused by antivirus software’

Dr Simon Wallace, chief clinical information officer at Microsoft, said that a global IT outage affecting healthcare services had been caused by antivirus firm CrowdStrike. 

Speaking at Digital Health Summer Schools on 18 July 2024 at Durham University, Wallace told delegates: “The issue has been identified to a third party antivirus company called CrowdStrike Falcon, and it’s impacting Windows virtual machines.

“As you can imagine, Microsoft is all over it and mitigation processes are in place to rectify this as soon as possible”.

Wallace added that he did not have any timelines at the moment but was receiving regular updates.

The IT outage, which began on the evening of 18 July, caused Windows computers to shut down affecting services including healthcare, banks and airports.

NHS England confirmed, in a statement on 19 July 2024, that the outage was affecting EMIS, a system used by GP practices and pharmacies to book appointments, view patient notes, order prescriptions and make referrals for patients.

“The NHS is aware of a global IT outage and an issue with EMIS, an appointment and patient record system, which is causing disruption in the majority of GP practices.

“There are also some issues with administrative systems in hospitals that mean staff are having to work manually from paper to manage certain tasks but in the majority of hospitals, care is continuing as normal.

“The NHS has long standing measures in place to manage the disruption, including using paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions, and the usual phone systems to contact your GP,” a spokesperson for NHSE said.

They added that there is “currently no known impact on 999 or emergency services”.

A spokesperson for Crowdstrike told Digital Health News: “CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.

“Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack.

“The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.

“We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website”.

GP practices around the country have taken to X, formerly known as Twitter, to post about the disruption.

Wilmslow Health Centre, posted on X on 19 July: “All practices in the UK using the NHS commissioned GP computer system EMIS are currently without access to their IT systems.

“This is beyond the control of GP surgeries. Please bear with us until we have our IT systems back online.”

All practices in the UK using the NHS commissioned GP computer system EMIS are currently without access to their IT systems. This is beyond the control of GP surgeries. Please bear with us until we have our IT systems back online.

— Wilmslow Health Centre (@WilmslowHealth) July 19, 2024

A website statement from Ellergreen Medical Centre in Liverpool, said: “Due to a worldwide software issue we are unable to access our clinical system so unable to make any appointments at this time or to access any records to give results”.

A spokesperson for the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) said that the organisation was urgently raising the issue with NHSE and requested patients to “be patient”.

“We’re aware that due to global IT outages that services in some community pharmacies, including the accessing of prescriptions from GPs and medicine deliveries, are disrupted today,” an NPA spokesperson said.

EMIS posted on X that a third party issue had caused the outage and said it is working to restore service.

We’re affected by a third-party issue that is impacting organisations globally, and we’re working with the relevant parties to restore service as soon as possible.
We apologise for any inconvenience this is causing. Please see updates on the Service Status page on EMIS Now.

— EMIS (@EMISHealth) July 19, 2024

An NHS Blood and Transplant spokesperson urged donors to book and keep appointments to donate blood “to boost NHS resilience at this time”.

This story was updated at 14.53 on 19 July 2024 to updated statements from NHSE and NHS Blood and Transplant.