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The headline refers to a disruption on 19 July 2024, when a faulty CrowdStrike update affected Windows systems and NHS England reported an issue with EMIS, a GP appointment and patient-record system. NHS England said the disruption affected the majority of GP practices. This was a historical incident, not evidence that GP records are currently unavailable.
What happened to GP access to digital records?
On 19 July 2024, NHS England said a global IT outage and an issue with EMIS were disrupting the majority of GP practices. EMIS is used for appointments and patient records. NHS England also said practices had contingency measures such as paper records and handwritten prescriptions. Its statement did not give a practice-by-practice count of record-access failures.
The underlying technical cause and the effect on GP services are related but distinct: CrowdStrike described a faulty update to its Windows security software, while NHS England described the resulting disruption to EMIS and GP practices.
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CrowdStrike attributed the crashes to a defective Falcon content configuration update for Windows hosts and said the incident was not a cyberattack. According to the company, the update began at 04:09 UTC on 19 July 2024 and was reverted at 05:27 UTC. The vendor said the affected scope was certain online Windows hosts running Falcon sensor version 7.11 or later that received the update during that interval; Mac and Linux hosts were not affected by this specific update. CrowdStrike’s technical account describes the update and its scope.
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In a preliminary review published on 24 July, CrowdStrike said a bug in its Content Validator allowed one of two IPC Template Instances to pass validation despite problematic content data. That is the vendor’s technical explanation, not an NHS investigation. CrowdStrike’s preliminary review sets out that account.
What is known—and not known—about the impact?
NHS England’s 19 July statement said “the majority of GP practices” were disrupted, but did not provide a list or count of affected practices, quantify how many could not access records, or give a practice-level restoration timeline. Its contemporaneous statement is the source for the England-wide description.
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Northern Ireland’s Department of Health later reported that EMIS GP services there lost core viewing and updating functions, with connected services such as laboratory orders and results also affected. That account concerns Northern Ireland and should not be treated as a measured description of every English practice. The department’s update provides the local detail.
CrowdStrike reported that approximately 99% of Windows sensors were online against the pre-update baseline at 8 p.m. EDT on 29 July 2024. This was the vendor’s sensor-connectivity measure—not a percentage of GP practices, patient records, or NHS services restored. The available statements do not establish a comparable England-wide GP recovery percentage. CrowdStrike announced publication of its root-cause analysis on 6 August 2024. Its update reports the sensor figure and RCA announcement.
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What were patients advised to do at the time?
During the 19 July 2024 incident, NHS England advised patients to attend appointments unless told otherwise. If an issue was urgent, patients could phone their GP; for urgent health advice, it pointed people to a local pharmacy, NHS 111 online, or 111 by phone. NHS England said at the time that it knew of no impact on 999 and advised using emergency services as usual in an emergency. This records the advice issued during that incident; for a current health concern, follow current NHS guidance.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Does this mean GP records are still unavailable?
No. The reports cited here describe the outage on 19 July 2024 and its subsequent technical recovery measures. They do not show a present-day outage or establish that GP records remain inaccessible. If you cannot access your own records now, contact your GP practice for help with that current issue; a general NHS App or records-access problem should not automatically be attributed to the 2024 outage.
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