IT experts from the US are being flown in to help address ongoing issues with clinical systems across several trusts in the North of England.
The Manchester Evening News revealed this week that help is being sought from overseas to address problems facing hospitals operated by the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust.
The trust announced that problems with its clinical IT systems were reported on 18 May and said it was working with its technology providers to resolve them.
And, while it says it has made ‘some positive progress’ diagnosing the issues affecting systems at the Royal Oldham Hospital, Fairfield General Hospital, Rochdale Infirmary , and North Manchester General Hospital, significant problems remain.
These are impacting on several digital systems including those used to look up test results, electronically prescribe medications, and track patients as they move through the hospitals.
In a statement made on 24 May, trust deputy chief executive and chief medical officer, Dr Chris Brookes, said: “We are still working hard to resolve the significant IT issues that have been affecting some of our digital systems at our hospitals.
“This means that our clinical teams are continuing to rely on our robust contingency plans for such critical incidents.
“Patient safety and maintaining essential services remains our priority and we are doing everything we can to fix the IT issues and to limit disruption to patients and our services.
“However, unfortunately some patients may experience some delays and additional waiting across some of our services such as outpatient appointments, diagnostic tests, or scans. We apologise for this.”