NHS Shetland apologises to health centre patients for disruption

NHS Shetland has apologised to patients who experienced difficulties while making appointments recently at Lerwick Health Centre.

The problem occurred during the upgrading of the health centre’s computer network. It has now been identified and the health service is working to rectify the situation as soon as possible.

Director of clinical services Simon Bokor-Ingram said: “Over the last few years there has been significant investment in the IT infrastructure in NHS Shetland to improve our systems and our key priority this year is to provide all our GP practices with a new system.

“As this work has progressed it has identified a number of new issues that need to be improved and over the last few days the Lerwick Health Centre has experienced significant problems with the IT system. This has led to staff having to run a different appointment scheduling system to ensure that patients continue to receive a service. This has been very challenging, and the GPs, nurses and reception staff have worked extremely hard so that all patient needs are being met.

“We recognise the inconvenience this has caused for some patients. I would like to apologise to all the patients of the Lerwick Health Centre who have been inconvenienced by this IT problem. The fault has now been identified and we are working to rectify this as quickly as possible.

“We will continue to see all patients who need to be seen by a GP on the day. We would ask that patients are as understanding as possible with our staff who are doing everything possible to minimise disruption.”