Faulty air conditioning caused chaos at the Great Western Hospital when it knocked out the phone and computer systems.
The air conditioning units that were supposed to be cooling down the hospital's servers stopped working, leading to the temperature in the room rising too high.
This caused all of the vital phone and computer systems to stop working, meaning that staff couldn't access appointment or patient records, answer phones or call out yesterday.
Chief executive Kevin McNamara praised staff for carrying on in extremely difficult circumstances and apologised for disruption to patients.
He described the issues as piling on pressure for staff already dealing with several ongoing problems, like Covid, big emergency demand and staffing gaps.
He said a "hugely impressive team effort" from several different departments at the GWH meant that several services are able to continue, but unfortunately some appointments were cancelled at short notice.
On top of Covid, big emergency demand, waiting list backlog and staffing gaps the universe has conspired over the past few weeks with added challenges…electrical blackouts, phone system failures & this week server malfunctions caused by A/C failure knocking out essential systems
— Kevin McNamara (@Kevin_McNamara1) November 26, 2021
All of which adds significant pressure & stress to operational & clinical teams. And every time, despite everything else that teams have to juggle, folk step forward to manage & fix the issues. A hugely impressive team effort.
— Kevin McNamara (@Kevin_McNamara1) November 26, 2021
IT, Pharmacy, ops & site managers, matrons, medical colleagues, resilience leads, estates and many others have spent the past 48hrs grappling with very complex issues whilst keeping services going as well as possible.
— Kevin McNamara (@Kevin_McNamara1) November 26, 2021
Thank you everyone for stepping forward this week yet again.
Unfortunately to manage things safely we had to cancel a number of appointments for today at short notice for which I am sorry. Those impacted will be rebooked very soon.
— Kevin McNamara (@Kevin_McNamara1) November 26, 2021
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