Trust underplayed ‘catastrophic’ IT outage

A major London trust has been criticised for ‘underplaying’ the problems caused by a ‘catastrophic’ IT outage, a new report has revealed.

The Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust report also noted one patient suffered “moderate harm” and several others “low” level harm after last July’s incident, which was caused by a combination of a heatwave and ageing infrastructure. 

However, the trust said there was no evidence the “underplaying” of issues was deliberate.

The report identified one incident of “moderate” patient harm, in which a patient was unable to receive a pancreas transplant due to staff being unable to safely monitor critical observations. The patient has since had a successful operation, the trust’s report stated.

Another 20 “low” harm incidents were reported, which included delays in patients receiving their test results and/or medicines, while the report added the trust could not rule out that “further harm events may be identified” amidst an ongoing harm review.

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Source: HSJ, 27 January 2023