Medical practices across North Shropshire were thrown into chaos yesterday, Wednesday, after computer problems meant that patients couldn’t make appointments or order prescriptions and doctors couldn’t view patient records.
Practice staff found their systems were down when they arrived for work in the morning and had to wait up to three hours before they came back online. Emergency appointments were being scribbled down by hand until the problems could be resolved.
Bosses at the Shrewsbury-based Shropshire Primary Care Trust said the problems came about as a result of disruptions to the electricity supply to the IT server room at their headquarters on Tuesday night.
As the Chronicle went to press, PCT bosses refused to rule out further disruptions until the problems were sorted out once and for all.
Speaking yesterday, Julie Thornby, director of corporate affairs for Shropshire County PCT, said there were disruptions during the night which meant 80 per cent of practices across Shropshire were affected.
“We have a lot of electricians trying to fix the problems to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” she said.
“It’s very frustrating and the practices might be disrupted again later in the day until things are sorted properly.”
Morvan Jones, practice manager for the Bridgwater Practice in Whitchurch, said: “When people ring we are taking contact details down and then we’ll get back to them although in an emergency they can come down.
“We can’t view all the records. It’s a nuisance but patients are still being seen as normal and we can still take details down although we might not get prescriptions done by midday.”
Harjeet Chawla, practice manager at Prees Medical Practice, said: “We’re asking patients to ring back later, but if they need to see the doctor they can call in as we’re holding an open surgery.
“The doctors are having to write everything out at the moment and we can only view the written records.”
A spokesperson from Wem Medical Practice said that their IT system had also gone down.
But staff from Ellesmere Medical Practice said they were unaffected.
