The trade union for doctors said GPs will have to deal with the backlog this coming week and that “patience” will be required for those ringing their GP. A flawed update rolled out by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike knocked many services offline around the world on Friday, causing flight and train cancellations and crippling some healthcare systems. Advertisement Advertisement Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Belfast News Letter, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more.
A fix was deployed for a bug in the update, which affected equipment running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as CrowdStrike's chief executive George Kurtz said it would take "some time" for systems to be fully restored. Microsoft said CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices – less than 1% of all the corporation’s machines.
Across Northern Ireland , an estimated two-thirds of GP surgeries reported being unable to book appointments or access patient records as their EMIS system went down. Speaking about the effects of the global IT outage on primary care, Dr Frances O’Hagan, chair of BMA’s Northern Ireland GP committee, said: “Tomorrow will be a particularly busy day for our GP surgeries as we deal with the aftermath of this outage. Advertisement Advertisement “A key online system we rely upon to access and update patients’ clinical records went down, caus.