GPs, police and pharmacies among UK services affected by Microsoft outage

A spokesperson for the National Pharmacy Association said the outage was affecting pharmacies’ ability to communicate with GP practices and some patients, so “waits may be longer than normal and there may be delays to some prescriptions”.

Metropolitan Police, Greater Manchester Police and North Yorkshire Police have all issued statements saying online forms may be affected by the outage. They have urged people to call 101 with time-critical but non-emergency reports.

South Wales Police and Dyfed-Powys Police have also reported similar issues and are asking people to call if they need to get in touch. Police Scotland said there may be delays responding to forms submitted in the past 24 hours.

The London Ambulance Service’s critical platforms do not use Microsoft so are unaffected by the outage.

The GMB union’s national secretary Rachel Harrison said the outage was having a “serious impact” across ambulance and NHS trusts.

“Those who work in 111 and 999 services are unable to refer patient details in the normal way which is creating a massive backlog and has the potential for chaos,” she said, though “emergency and life threatening call outs appear to be unaffected”.

Heathrow, Manchester and Stansted airports are operating as usual.

Defence minister Luke Pollard told BBC Breakfast that the government was “assessing the impact” of the outage on its systems and would issue a statement once this was completed.

A government spokesperson said it was “working closely” with Microsoft to assess “any impact on government services” by the company’s outage.

It is understood that UK intelligence operations have been unaffected. While some elements of the security services use Microsoft tools, they have a separate system for secret operations.

MPs are unable to access their parliamentary accounts, however. A spokesperson said alternative arrangements were in place to allow the day’s business to go ahead.

Some teachers have reported being unable to access their calendars, emails and files on cloud servers, while parents in several parts of Scotland being told to call to report absences rather than using email.

Northern Ireland’s Education Authority said its schools were unable to access email accounts.

Royal Mail also said some of its online services were unavailable and that email notifications about deliveries may be delayed or unset, but that post was still being collected and delivered as normal.