00:00Across Kenton Medway, GP practices are dealing with ongoing IT disruptions, with systems failing unpredictably, and in some cases, multiple
00:09times a week.
00:10At one local surgery, staff say outages now happen as often as twice weekly, and sometimes last several hours.
00:18In the last probably six months, it's happening every single week at least, twice a week.
00:25We don't know why it's in the mornings, it's usually Mondays or Fridays, we don't know why we have to
00:31put that to IT.
00:33And it can go down from anything from one hour to four hours, but we're not too sure why.
00:41And it can sometimes be all the internet, it can sometimes be the whole screens, we can't even log in.
00:47Sometimes it can affect the phone lines, sometimes it doesn't, so there's no set pattern each week.
00:52And inside the consulting room, the impact is clear.
00:56Many of the consultations that people have are consultations where they're coming back for results.
01:03And that could be, we've sent them for investigations such as, it could be something as simple as an X
01:08-ray, it could be an ultrasound scan,
01:11it could be some other kind of test like a blood pressure monitoring investigation that they've had.
01:17You've got, you don't have that information available.
01:20So, to all extents and purposes, that would be very much a wasted conversation.
01:29The only situations where you might be able to extract some value from that encounter is where people are coming
01:36perhaps for the first time.
01:38It's actually one of the worst aspects, I think, of working in general practice, actually, is the quality of the
01:46IT system.
01:47For receptionist staff, patient frustration is often directed at them, as patients struggle to access appointments or test results,
01:55and sometimes assume the issue lies with the practice.
01:58Sometimes they're sympathetic, a lot of times they're not, they're disgruntled because they've probably waited a while for their appointments
02:09that they've booked.
02:11They're obviously ill, they're not in the best health, so they want to see someone.
02:14If you're telling them there's even more of a delay, or if they are going to see the doctor or
02:20the clinician,
02:21and they might not get their needs met as their expectations, they're even more disgruntled.
02:28And then sometimes they think, I think sometimes we might be making it up.
02:33Because of the IT failures, patients that are unable to see their doctor or get the care they need
02:38are oftentimes having to be diverted to A&E, urgent care and secondary services,
02:43creating a wider impact across the NHS.
02:46I reached out to the NHS Integrated Care Board for a comment, but have not yet received a response.
02:53Kristen Hawthorne, KMTV, Gravesend.
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