CSC failure leaves 80 trusts without IT systems

A technical failure at an NHS Connecting for Health data centre on Sunday has left 80 NHS trusts across the North West and West Midlands, including eight acute trusts, without access to patient data on their clinical and administration computer systems.

E-Health Insider understands that trusts across NWWM were left without access to key IT systems after yesterday’s failure at both a centralised data centre and a disaster recovery facility with a full back-up system.

The problems were continuing this morning with three trusts confirming off the record that they were experiencing problems with unavailable systems.  In addition Birmingham Children’s Hospital NHS Trust confirmed that it had been hit.  "We are experiencing technical problems with Lorenzo[its computer system]," a trust spokesperson told EHI.

One trust IT manager told EHI: “The data centre in Kent had major problems at the weekend. Every application provided is off at every hospital and PCT.” The manager added: “This will really hit places like University of Birmingham, as Monday morning is always the busiest time.”

The systems affected include patient administration systems, holding millions of patient records, being managed for NHS trusts by US company Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) as part of the NHS National Programme for IT.

It is not yet clear if the failure affects all NWWM sites that have received patient administration systems from CSC. However, if it does, up to nine acute trusts and approximately 40 community trusts may have to revert temporarily to manual systems.

CSC is delivering the software applications through two supposedly foolproof data centres, one in Maidstone in Kent and the other in a back-up centre which is meant to automatically take over in the event of any problem.

CSC and NHS Connecting for Health were preparing a joint statement as this article went to press.

++++++++++++++++++++

Update (15.00, July 31)

++++++++++++++++++++

Subsequent to the original story above being published by E-Health Insider, NHS Connecting for Health issued the following statement:

"Regrettably, NHS Connecting for Health (NHS CFH) can confirm that there has been serious interruption to computer services provided by CSC Alliance in the NHS in the North West and West Midlands of England since 10am on Sunday 30 July 2006. This incident was caused by Storage Area Network equipment failure and has affected several other organisations which also use the CSC Maidstone Data Centre.

"Technical issues following power system interruptions mean that data held on computers in the central "data centre" for the region cannot be accessed. The nature of the incident meant that service could not immediately be provided by the back-up systems, also provided by CSC Alliance. No data has been lost.

"Experts from CSC and its sub-contractor Hitchi have been working round the clock to restore access to data. NHS Connecting for Health has been kept informed about progress. A decision has been made to prioritise the restoration of key services. Whilst some services will be restored within a few hours other services will take longer to restore.

"In the meantime the affected trusts – all those which have had new administrative computer systems installed by CSC – are continuing to provide normal service by operating manual contingency systems. Some 80 trusts (72 primary care and 8 acute trusts) are affected. NHS CFH and CSC regret the inconvenience this incident is causing and are committed to resolving the issues as soon as possible."