To all patients and residents across Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin.

Following the global IT outage on Friday 19 July 2024, we can report that EMIS - the appointment and patient record system - is now up and running for GP practices, community pharmacies, and the Prescription Ordering Direct (POD) service.

However, please note that disruption does continue for these services due to the backlog of work that has been created by the outage.

The POD team has been working over the weekend to ensure recent prescription orders are processed and staff have also been redeployed to manage the situation. Delays should be expected in the authorising and dispensing of medications, and where GP practice and community pharmacy colleagues are needing to input paper records, taken during Friday’s outage, onto their systems.

Patients are asked to only order repeat prescriptions when they are needed to ensure the services are able to prioritise those which are urgent.

Teams are working incredibly hard to work through the backlog so please be mindful of this should you need to use these services over the coming week and be understanding when speaking to staff.

Please continue to attend any arranged healthcare appointments unless informed otherwise and use the healthcare service which best suits your needs including your local pharmacy and NHS 111 online or call 111 for urgent health advice as normal. To find out which service is right for you, we have put together the following guide to help: ‘Think Which Service’.

Remember, 999 and A&E are for emergency, life-threatening illnesses only.

Thank you for your support.