Secondary Care

Northern Care Alliance to assess root cause and lessons learned from IT issues

The Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust has confirmed the “IT issues affecting a number of clinical and non-clinical digital IT systems have now been fully resolved.”

The Royal Oldham Hospital, Fairfield General Hospital in Bury and Rochdale Infirmary (run by the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust), and North Manchester General Hospital (run by MFT), experienced “significant IT issues”  Wednesday 18 May.

In the trust’s statement, it noted: “The trust’s Digital IT team and suppliers have worked tirelessly and have now completed the full restoration of all systems. All IT systems are now fully available and operating as usual.”

The trust has been working with NHS England and NHS Digital to assess a root cause analysis report, provided by the suppliers involved, which outlines the cause. A full lessons learnt report is now planned to be presented and discussed at the Northern Care Alliance board meeting in July.

The trust’s statement added: “All of the trust’s diagnostic, pathology and pharmacy services, and referral pathways from GPs and primary care have returned to ‘business as usual’ and have been operating as such since 6 June.

“Following ongoing testing and monitoring, we are now in position to step down from a business continuity incident to business as usual.

“We are incredibly grateful to all colleagues and partners for the tremendous efforts, patience and collaboration that has enabled us to safely navigate this incident.”