IT system problem caused cancellation of outpatient and theatre appointments in local hospitals

The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

Outpatient and theatre appointments were cancelled throughout The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust on Thursday due to problems with IT systems, network and email.

A spokesperson for The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said: “The IT hardware fault that affected our four hospitals, The Royal Oldham Hospital, Fairfield General Hospital in Bury, Rochdale Infirmary and North Manchester General Hospital yesterday has now been stabilised. The route cause has been identified and dealt with. All of our IT infrastructure has been restored and tested. Staff can now access email and internet services and our clinical systems have now recovered.

“We do not anticipate that any further outpatient or theatre appointments will have to be cancelled today and patients should attend their appointments as normal unless they are contacted directly by the Trust to say otherwise. All of our hospital services including our A&E and maternity services will operate as usual today.

“Our commissioners, health and social care partners and GP practices are working with us to ensure that we can clear any backlogs created by the loss of service yesterday as soon as possible. Those patients who did have outpatient and theatre appointments cancelled yesterday will be contacted as soon as possible to be re-scheduled. We would like to apologise to any patients affected for any inconvenience this has caused them.

“Our contingency plans performed well under pressure yesterday and many of our staff, specialist contractors and suppliers worked hard and went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure patient safety was not compromised and the situation was brought under control swiftly. Thank you to all the staff who played their part in our effective response and to the public for their patience and support in this matter.”