News / NHS Shetland apologises for IT problems
NHS SHETLAND is apologising to patients who are being inconvenienced after the Lerwick health centre began experiencing “significant” computer problems.
Director of clinical services, Simon Boker-Ingram said on Thursday that the fault has now been identified; however it is likely that the issues will not be resolved before next Thursday (29 September) when new hardware is expected to be fitted.
“I would like to apologise to all the patients of the Lerwick Health Centre who have been inconvenienced by this I.T. problem.
“The fault has now been identified and we are working to rectify this as quickly as possible.
“We will continue to see all patients who need to be seen by a GP on the day. We would ask that patients are as understanding as possible with our staff who are doing everything possible to minimise disruption,” he said.
The health board added that due to the IT fault staff are running a different appointment scheduling system to ensure that patients continue to receive a service.
This had been very challenging, and the GPs, nurses and reception staff have worked extremely hard so that all patient needs are being met, the health board said.
Mr Boker-Ingram continued, saying that NHS Shetland was in the process of upgrading its computer system to improve its service to patients. Key priority this year was to provide all our GP Practices with a new system.
“This will provide significant benefits to our patients and practice staff and replaces the current GPASS system.
“In preparation for the new system and to improve our system resilience we have been upgrading the network that serves the Lerwick health centre.
As this work has progressed it has identified a number of new issues that need to be improved and over the last few days the Lerwick Health Centre has experienced significant problems with the I.T. system,” the health board said.
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