'Microsoft outage put patients in a bad situation'

From schools and councils to doctors' surgeries and criminal courts, just about everything and everyone was affected by the global Microsoft outage in some way.

The problems hit users of Microsoft 365 Services like Teams and Outlook, as well as the firm's artificial intelligence software, Copilot.

By Friday afternoon the tech company, reported "sustained improvements". It said the issue was not caused by a cyber-security incident but by a higher-than-usual stress on its servers.

But, at the height of the problem, how was Suffolk affected and how did the county cope with being taken offline?

The outage affected organisations such Suffolk County Council, Ipswich Borough Council, Suffolk Police, Ipswich Town Football Club and BBC Suffolk.

But it also had a big impact on healthcare and county businesses.

From the Constable Country Medical Practice, in East Bergholt, to the Woolpit Health Centre, in Bury St Edmunds, GP surgeries encountered problems.

NHS England also said the outage had caused a "disruptive impact" on its operations but urged patients to continue attending appointments.

Rachel Andrews, assistant manager at the Orchard Medical Practice, in Ipswich, said having no access to emails impacted prescriptions.

"If we haven't got the hospital discharge summaries, we don't know what medications need changing, so that means a delay in the changes to patient treatments," she said.

"It's very hard for us to prescribe when we don't know what has been prescribed, and we cannot prescribe blindly – it could be very serious."

She added that the outage also resulted in even more pressure being placed on already overstretched reception staff.

"Patients were having to phone the surgery instead, which was obviously impacting how many phone calls we were getting and the wait time," said Andrews.

Mohamad Alom, from Aqua Pharmacy, in Ipswich, said patients were arriving to pick up medication, but they couldn't due to prescriptions not having been received from doctors.

"We were surprised and really stressed because it was a bad and serious situation for patients who needed their medicines," he said.

"The NHS email address system was not working at all and we weren't able to email any patient request to the doctors' surgeries."

Concerns were also raised about the effect the outage could have on businesses, prompting calls for greater fail-safes to be in place.

Jules Shorrock, vice chair of the Suffolk Business Women Board, said the outage would be "dreadful" for the economy.

"It's really not good at all, particularly if your income is also dependent on the time you spend online, but the consequences are significant all round," she said.

"It makes you evaluate the fact we are so heavily reliant on one particular thing, that actually there needs to be like a process in place in case these things happen.

"Our infrastructure needs beefing up considerably."

Mark Ling is the agency director for ICE Transport, in Ipswich, which specialises in global freight shipping for small and medium-sized businesses.

"There are ways and means but it's hit my US principal office and it's hit me and it does show much we depend on our connectivity and our networks," he said.

"What we really need to do is invest in those areas make sure they're robust and strong because everybody benefits from that."

Additional reporting by Sarah Lilley.

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