GPs face EMIS IT outage at busiest time of the week

An outage to the EMIS IT system caused “chaos” for GPs in England when access was cut off to appointment booking systems and patient records at the busiest time of the week. 

EMIS is the most widely-used GP practice IT system in England, in use at more than half of practices across the country.

Practices at locations including London, Cheshire and Bristol reported an outage on the morning of 4 November 2024, according to a report in GPonline.

GPs reported that the system was out of action on Monday morning, one of the busiest times of the week for general practice, leaving staff unable to do anything.

Dr Selvaseelan Selvarajah, a GP at St Andrews Health Centre in East London told GPonline that staff flagged the issue at around 7.30am and it continued until around 9.30am.

He said: ‘We came in this morning, it worked for a few seconds and then there was the wheel of doom.

“We restarted the system a few times and it still did not work, then we raised it with the EMIS team.

“Mondays are always busy but this has been chaotic. It is a patient safety issue too, because we have a complex issue of not being able to access medications and hospital letters.

“EMIS told us that it is unavailable for some users and they are treating it as a high priority issue.”

He added that St Andrews Health Centre had to turn off its online triage consultation system and revert to using a telephone-only system for contacting the practice and paper and basic text documents.

In a post on X, Dr Selvarajah said: “General Practice and rest of the #NHS needs responsive and reliable health technology if we are to deliver for our patients.”

General Practice and rest of the #NHS needs responsive and reliable health technology if we are to deliver for our patients. https://t.co/nvQ5Q68VWX

— Selvaseelan Selvarajah (@DrSelvarajah) November 4, 2024

Dr Selvarajah said he believed there had been a problem with EMIS since the previous day adding that there is a “recurrent issue, with the EMIS system going down four or five times in 2024”.

Meanwhile, Wilmslow Health Centre in Cheshire also posted on X: “There is yet another national outage of EMIS on a busy Monday morning. @wesstreeting give us the fundamental tools to do our jobs. Fund NHS IT properly and encourage new market entrants to break the duopoly of clinical system suppliers in the NHS.”

There is yet another national outage of EMIS on a busy Monday morning. @wesstreeting give us the fundamental tools to do our jobs. Fund NHS it properly and encourage new market entrants to break the duopoly of clinical system suppliers in the NHS.@ShaunLintern

— Wilmslow Health Centre (@WilmslowHealth) November 4, 2024

Dr Dave Triska, a GP based in Surrey wrote on X: “Another Monday, another EMIS failure. The joy.”

Another Monday, another EMIS failure

The joy

— Dr Dave Triska (@dave_dlt) November 4, 2024

Dr Sitso Amankwah, a GP based in London said: “Wondering how Wes’ plan for AI to improve the NHS will work when we can’t even log onto our clinical systems to use it…FFS”

Wondering how Wes’ plan for AI to improve the NHS will work when we can’t even log onto our clinical systems to use it…FFS pic.twitter.com/P6lo97d4h6

— Sitso Amankwah #TeamGP 💙 😷 (@Dr_Sitz) November 4, 2024

An EMIS spokesperson said: “There was a brief incidence of degraded performance for some EMIS Web users this morning. The issue has been resolved.”

In May 2023, Digital Health News reported that an EMIS outage which affected thousands of GP surgeries in England had caused “significant disruption” to practices.

Meanwhile, in a Royal College of General Practitioners poll, 30% of GPs reported that their work PC or laptop software is not fit for purpose.