Global IT outage: NHS warns of GP disruption next week – as travellers report long delays and lost baggage

The NHS has warned of “continued disruption” to GP services into next week following the global IT outage – as airline passengers reported lengthy delays and lost baggage this weekend.

The outage spread globally on Friday morning after an update from global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike knocked many Microsoft Windows PCs offline with a “blue screen of death” appearing on screens.

The company’s founder confirmed it was caused by a bug in the update and not a cyber attack, as some had feared.

NHS England reported its systems were “coming back online in most areas” on Saturday afternoon but were “still running slightly slower than usual”.

A spokesperson said: “As practices recover from the loss of IT systems on Friday, there may be some continued disruption, particularly to GP services, in some areas into next week as practices work to rebook appointments.”

There was also significant disruption to pharmacy services on Saturday.

Nick Kaye, chair of the National Pharmacy Association, said systems were “by and large back online and medicine deliveries have resumed in many community pharmacies today”.

But he added Friday’s outage “will have caused backlogs and we expect services to continue to be disrupted this weekend as pharmacies recover”.

“We urge people to be patient when visiting their local pharmacy and some may be still prioritising those patients with emergency prescriptions from their GP surgery,” he said.

Microsoft estimated that around 8.5 million Windows devices were affected worldwide, equating to less than 1%.

But experts have warned it could take weeks for systems to fully recover and problems at airports were being reported on Saturday.

Andrew Evans, from Taunton in Somerset, said he had been waiting more than nine hours in Palma de Mallorca airport and claimed there had been little communication from airline operator TUI.

His flight, bound for Exeter, was due to take off at 2.05am local time (1.05am UK time) but passengers had still not boarded at around 10.30am local time on Saturday morning.

“Our holiday has absolutely fallen apart at the end – it feels like we are abandoned,” Mr Evans said.

“We went to the carousel but there was nothing there. We still haven’t got our luggage.”

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Passengers on a Ryanair flight from Bristol to Portugal reported arriving at the holiday destination to find that no checked-in baggage had been loaded on to the plane.

On Friday, some 167 flights scheduled to depart from UK airports were cancelled, while 171 flights due to land in the UK were axed.

TUI said its IT systems “remained unstable” and apologised to passengers, adding: “We understand how disappointing this would have been and recognise that many customers were already at the airport waiting for their departure.”

The Port of Dover said early on Saturday that it was dealing with “hundreds of displaced” airport passengers and urged customers to ensure they had a booking before arrival.

It is understood that the port was not a victim of the global IT outage.

Doug Bannister, head of the Port of Dover, said: “We operate a turn-up-and-go system here. However, we do insist you have a book on busy days, even if people are doing this on the drive down.

“The greater visibility we have the better.

“But we are here to service people who want to travel. So I would say to displaced airport passengers ‘come on down. We have the capacity’.”

The National Lottery app and website were down on Saturday – although it was unclear if this was connected to the global IT outage.

The travel delays come as thousands of families start to embark on summer holidays amid the end of the academic year for many schools.