Patients turned away at King's College Hospital after patient records system goes down

Consultants unable to see patients as Sunrise-EPR patient records system goes down for a second time in recent months

Outpatients at King's College Hospital in London have been sent home today after the Trust's patient records system went down. Consultants at the Hospital have only been able to see new patients as they are unable to access the records of ongoing patients.

The decision to send patients home and rebook them was made this afternoon just after 2pm as waiting rooms filled up to bursting.

Patients were being rebooked for later in the month, which will also have a knock-on effect for other patients' waiting times.

The Hospital, run by King's College Hospital Foundation NHS Trust, uses the Allscripts Sunrise-EPR patient records system, which staff say is generally reliable, although it is the second time in recent months that it has gone down.

King's only implemented the system a few years ago following a selection process that concluded in December 2015.

Computing has contacted the Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust for more details about the outage

The Trust runs hospitals across the London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham and Bromley, but is in serious financial difficulty following its mergers with neighbouring NHS trusts, absorbing Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust and South London Healthcare NHS Trust, among others.

The Trust is weighed down with the cost of servicing PFI debts related to developments such as the £1.2 billion PFI bill attached to the Princess Royal Hospital in Farnborough, Kent, opened in 2003.