Around 1,600 hospital and community appointments were postponed this week after a major IT outage disrupted services across the Southern Health and Social Care Trust (SHSCT).
The disruption, which began on Wednesday, affected several sites including Craigavon Area Hospital and Daisy Hill Hospital. Patients were advised not to attend appointments at any of the trust’s hospitals or community services until further notice.
Health Minister Mike Nesbitt confirmed that acute, elective, mental health, and children’s and young people’s services were among those impacted. He reassured the public that the issue was not cyber-related.
“I sincerely regret that it was necessary to postpone planned appointments and to have patients conveyed by ambulance to other HSC facilities as a consequence,” Nesbitt said.
By Friday, services had begun to stabilise. No further cancellations were reported, and community services for adults had remained unaffected throughout the incident. Nesbitt also confirmed that efforts are underway to rebook all postponed appointments in line with clinical priorities.
The Department of Health is providing additional resources to support the recovery, while the SHSCT has reported the outage to the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Network Information Systems Regulator, in line with statutory requirements.
Nesbitt clarified that the outage was not linked to the trust’s new digital systems but instead stemmed from issues in the data centres supporting IT infrastructure. “This is not due to a loss of data,” he stressed, “but relates to non-availability of systems during the affected period.”
A full review will be carried out to investigate the incident. Nesbitt said the inquiry would look beyond the technical cause and assess the trust’s preparedness, decision-making, and business continuity arrangements.
“The group will identify lessons for both the trust and the wider health service,” he added. “My department will continue to oversee the recovery and learning processes associated with this major incident. I again reiterate my apologies to all impacted patients, service users and staff.”
The outage has raised fresh concerns over NHS resilience and the reliance on digital systems in Northern Ireland’s healthcare sector.
