Major IT outages have disrupted prescription access and medicines delivery today, the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has confirmed.

IT issues affecting the 'majority' of GP practices are blocking access to electronic prescriptions and patient records.

And NHS England (NHSE) has suggested that paper prescriptions can be used 'to manage the disruption'.

Patients have reported being unable to access NHS app functionality including ordering repeat prescriptions.

IT provider CrowdStrike has said it has identified an issue and is deploying a fix.

Prescription access and medicine deliveries 'disrupted'

A spokesperson for the NPA told The Pharmacist that it was aware of disruption to some community pharmacy services 'due to global IT outages' today.

This included 'the accessing of prescriptions from GPs and medicine deliveries' affecting some community pharmacies.

The spokesperson said the NPA was 'urgently raising this issue with NHS England' (NHSE), and urged patients to be patient when visiting their pharmacy.

Paper prescriptions to 'manage the disruption'

Meanwhile, NHSE has suggested that 'paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions' are in place 'to manage the disruption'.

An NHS spokesperson said: 'The NHS is aware of a global IT outage and an issue with EMIS, an appointment and patient record system, which is causing disruption in the majority of GP practices.

'The NHS has long standing measures in place to manage the disruption, including using paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions, and the usual phone systems to contact your GP.

'There is currently no known impact on 999 or emergency services, so people should use these services as they usually would.

'Patients should attend appointments unless told otherwise. Only contact your GP if it’s urgent, and otherwise please use 111 online or call 111.'

Patients unable to order repeat prescriptions via NHS app

Meanwhile, patients have taken to social media to report issues with the NHS app, including being unable to order repeat prescriptions.

CrowdStrike 'deploying fix'

The issue is believed to be caused by a faulty Windows update due to a third party cybersecurity provider, CrowdStrike.

In a statement posted on X this morning, CrowdStrike chief executive George Kurtz said CrowdStrike was 'actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts'.

He clarified that the issue was not a security incident or cyberattack, and had not impacted Mac and Linux users.

'The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,' he added.

The Pharmacist has contacted EMIS for comment.