Microsoft outage disrupting healthcare; reports

The Microsoft outage affecting Outlook, Teams, and AI platform Copilot is causing widespread administrative and communications problems, including in health systems.

Dozens of GP surgeries and pharmacies across the UK, for example, have reported issues with their online contact and booking systems, while many NHS trusts that rely on Microsoft services for email and other functions are warning of internal system disruptions and slower response times, according to multiple media reports.

The fallout will add to growing concerns about government reliance on big tech platforms for critical public sector operations and infrastructure, leaving services exposed to service failures or restrictions – either accidental or deliberate – beyond national borders.

South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust issued a social media notice this morning acknowledging the problems, noting that "patients can still contact us by phone or online, but our teams may take a little longer than normal to respond."

The UK's NHS remains the most heavily affected European health system due to its centralised reliance on Microsoft 365 services, according to the BBC.

The Australian Medical Association, meanwhile, reported that hospitals and clinics have faced administrative and clerical issues as a result of the outage, but said this was not having any direct impacts on patient care. Some facilities are reverting to paper prescriptions because multifactor authentication for prescribing software relies on access to Microsoft-supported emails, according to a report in The Guardian.

And in Canada, Unity Health Toronto declared a 'Code Grey' situation due to email failures, advising patients to contact them via main hospital phone lines if enquiries are urgent, or "wait until email services are restored."

The outage started yesterday, with the Downdetector service reporting issues in more than 70 countries.

Microsoft has attributed the disruption to an infrastructure issue where a failed server health-check process overloaded remaining servers, rather than a cyber-attack, but has been struggling to correct the problem, saying fixes are "not taking as expected."

The tech giant is attempting other fixes in an attempt to allow more users to use the platforms without overloading systems, and said just a few minutes ago it is seeing "early signs of stabilisation."

Meanwhile, there have reportedly been some knock-on impacts on other providers, including AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic, which have said some tools that work with Microsoft products are not working as they should.