Welsh NHS systems failure down to technical glitch, not cyber attack

Blood test and x-ray results couldn't be accessed because of a technical issue with two Welsh NHS data centres

Welsh NHS doctors were unable to access patient details - including blood tests and x-rays - because of a failure in two data centres yesterday.

Hospitals and GP surgeries were affected, with the British Medical Association (BMA) in Wales stating that at least half of GP services had been affected. Patient contact details and letters from other staff could not be viewed as a result of the glitch.

The Welsh government has confirmed that while systems are now back and running, there could be a backlog affecting some areas.

The National Cyber Security Centre said that the issues were of a technical nature, rather than a cyber-attack like the WannaCry ransomware outbreak that affected the NHS last year.

Yesterday, Wales' Department of Health and Social Services tweeted: "There is currently a technical issue affecting two NHS Wales Data Centres. This is under investigation by the NHS Wales Informatics Service and is being dealt with as a priority".

Dr David Bailey, chairman of BMA Wales, said that the issue "would no doubt cause a major disruption to the NHS at a time when demand is already unprecedented".

"Welsh patients are those who will ultimately be affected, particularly if this results in doctors and other healthcare providers being unable to view medical records. We hope the situation is resolved quickly," he said.

Dave Anderson, a digital performance expert at application performance management software firm Dynatrace, said that while it is unknown exactly what the problem was, there had been reports of it being related to "national firewalls".

He claimed that the chaos created by the issue showed why the NHS needs to move "from hours to minutes to resolve problems like this".

"Ultimately, it comes down to our reliance on software and the need for it to work perfectly and that's difficult in IT environments that are getting more complex by the day," Anderson said.

"The challenge is that trying to find the root cause of the problem is like finding a needle in a haystack, and then understanding the impact and how to roll back from it is even more difficult," he added.