Microsoft outage could leave people in hospital for longer and others low on medication, warns top pharmacist

Microsoft outage could leave people in hospital for longer and others low on medication, warns top pharmacist EXCLUSIVE: The chair of a community pharmacy association revealed the impact Microsoft outages have had on chemists, leaving some driving to hospitals to pick up paper and drop medication Some patients could be kept in hospitals longer while some people could run low on medication amid the Microsoft outage that has impacted pharmacies and the NHS, a top pharmacist has warned. The UK Government and its counterparts worldwide have been forced to put in place contingency measures due to the outage, which has seen Microsoft scramble to restore email, Teams and other services since they went down yesterday around 6pm. Olivier Picard, the chair of the National Pharmacy Association, shared the impact of Friday's tech disruptions as pharmacists have been left to "work around the system". Pharmacies were unable to access their NHS emails meaning they could not contact hospitals or GPs for information on patients. Mr Picard, a Berkshire based pharmacist, revealed some chemists were forced to revert to contingency plans, and have people drive to hospitals to collect paper and come back to prepare medication to take back for patients. The NPA chair, who represents 6,000 members, shared the difficulties he faced this morning. He told the Mirror that dispensing or receiving prescriptions was not impacted as this is not done through an NHS email. Mr Picard said: "Where there's been a problem is, for example, in local surgeries, sometimes they only allow patients to request repeats either through the NHS App or via NHS email for security reasons." He added that patients have come in to request prescriptions but pharmacists have been unable to do this due to the outage. He added: "Some patients are telling me, 'Well, I'm running out of medication over the weekend.' There could be an argument around when it is reasonable to ask for a repeat prescription, but at the same time, these patients could be in a position where they have to wait for their repeat until next week." The NPA chair added that some pharmacies, including his, offer a service to hospitals where they can request medication to allow patients to be discharged from hospitals. Picard said: "Now, if we can't receive the email, we can't prepare the medication. "If we don't prepare the medication, the patient is staying in hospital until they receive the medication, and that can have a ripple effect for patients who might have to stay in hospital until we are able to receive and prepare those packs for them." On being forced to revert to driving between a hospital and pharmacy with papers and medication, Mr Picard said: "Basically today... we've gone back 20 years just because of that, in the way we work." The NPS chair however shared that all pharmacies should have contingency plans in place to ensure services are not majorly impacted, and praised pharmacists for how they responded to Friday's unexpected challenge. Mr Picard however shared his concerns over tech disruptions as this has not been the first one pharmacists have had to face, adding the extra concern for community pharmacies entering the festive period - which is the busiest time of the year for chemists. He said: "Pharmacies have gone through wars and pandemics over the last two centuries and have been able to continue providing NHS care to their patients. But we can't be let down by a system." Earlier today, in a statement, the NPA said: "Please bear with your pharmacy teams today, where waits may be longer than normal and there may be delays to some prescriptions." This comes as NHS England said health service staff were "enacting long-standing measures" to overcome IT outages, including using paper records, but asked patients to continue contacting services such as 999 and 111 as necessary, and attend appointments as usual. Professor Victoria Tzortziou Brown, President of the Royal College of GPs, said practices were continuing to provide care despite the disruptions. However, Professor Brown said: "We understand that the disruption is primarily affecting email communications, although there have also been reports of difficulties accessing some online consultation systems. The full extent of the impact is still being established." Other key services in the UK impacted by the tech disruption included some police forces, schools, and councils. Monitoring website Downdetector first showed a spike in users reporting problems with Microsoft Teams in the UK at about 6.15pm on Thursday, with more than 130,000 reporting Outlook issues in the US at its peak last night. Millions of its customers have been unable to send and receive emails through Outlook, with Teams has also been affected for many, and the tech giant's Copilot AI assistant and other Microsoft 365 services are also disrupted. Other AI chat services have also been disrupted, such as OpenAI's Chat GPT and Anthropic's Claude. Microsoft executive vice-president Charles Lamanna said the outages did not appear to be the result of a cyber attack.