GPs in the county are asking people to be patient as they face a massive backlog following a worldwide IT outage.

It is estimated that 34,000 appointments were missed across Kent and Medway last Friday (July 19).

At the time, numerous doctors’ surgeries reported issues with their computer systems including Staplehurst Health Centre, Manor Clinic in Folkestone and Jubilee Medical Group in Longfield.

It affected EMIS – an appointment and patient record system – which is used by the majority of practices in Kent.

Many practices were putting handwritten signs on their doors, with one in Bean saying: “System is down. Can't book appointment. Sorry."

Now, the Kent Local Medical Committee (LMC) has confirmed 34,000 appointments were affected by the outage.

The update was issued by Dr Andy Parkin, on behalf of the LMC, who confirmed the computer systems were fixed late on Sunday (July 21).

He said: “GP practices will be dealing with the backlog, re-booking appointments, issuing prescriptions and checking investigation results which were unable to be viewed following the disruption to an estimated 34,000 appointments across Kent and Medway on Friday, as a result of the global IT outage.

“If you have a booked appointment attend your surgery as normal, unless otherwise advised by your practice.

“Please be patient with staff as practices catch up over the coming week.”

The outage affected companies globally and is believed to have been caused by a faulty update to widely used cybersecurity software, CrowdStrike.

The Port of Dover, Dart Charge, train services and supermarkets were also affected.

Flights were either delayed or cancelled completely in all major airports.

Medical director of the LMC, Dr Caroline Rickard, explained that 34,000 is the average number of appointments that GP practices deliver in Kent and Medway in one day.

She said: “It was an outage that nobody could have anticipated, but it has really highlighted how vulnerable certain parts of healthcare and general practice are.

“The computer systems in GP surgeries are decided by NHS England and surgeries do not have direct control over which computer systems they use.

“We have been asking for some conversations to be had about this.

“We know that our union representative, the British Medical Association, is having some of these conversations with NHS England to discuss how we improve the resilience of the system so that something like this doesn't happen again.”

“Patients should be able to contact their practice in the usual way now,” she added.

“I think whenever something like this happens, frustrations can occur and that's understandable.

“It is out of our control, but we're really sorry for the disruption that patients will be experiencing.”

“...it has really highlighted how vulnerable certain parts of healthcare and general practice are.”

Dr Julian Spinks at the Sunlight Centre in Gillingham also told KentOnline that practices do not have paper records anymore but instead “overwhelmingly” use IT.

He said: “Whilst we do have contingency plans to maintain safety, what we are unable to do is the sort of routine things most people expect from their general practitioner.

“We have already had numerous meetings today to see what we can do to maintain services.

“We are looking at going back to pen and paper where we can but in reality so much is IT based now in the NHS, it is not going to be practical to do a lot of things that we can normally do.”