GP Surgeries Across South East Hit By Ongoing Internet Problems

GP practices across the South East are experiencing “difficulty in connecting to the internet”, according to health officials, causing disruption to some services.

Patients in Kent and Sussex have reported ongoing issues, with surgeries across both counties affected intermittently for several days.

Despite the technical problems, NHS Kent and Medway says practices remain open as normal and is asking patients to “bear with practice staff who are doing their best”.

The organisation says the NHS IT provider responsible for GP systems across large parts of southern and western England is investigating the outage.

In Kent, River Darent Medical Group said staff at its two practices were unable to access systems effectively and had temporarily “closed routine and urgent requests” on Tuesday.

Aylesham Medical Practice has also reported repeated issues since 15 April, saying it has been “unable to triage and reply” to online requests.

Elsewhere, Woodlands Health Centre in Paddock Wood described its computer systems as “intermittent” earlier this week.

In East Sussex, Bexhill Primary Care Network warned on 16 April that GPs “may be unable to use clinical systems, emails and other online services”, describing the situation as a “major incident”.

Health services in the region handle more than a million online GP contacts each month, according to the latest figures.