GP practices in Barnsley have not received electronic letters and test results this week.
The hospital updated its software during the weekend, and, unfortunately, there appears to be an issue with electronic letters and test results being sent to GP practices since then. They are working hard to resolve this problem.
What does this mean for our patients?
If you had a test at the surgery (blood, urine, stool sample), in the last week, we may not yet have received the result. We have received no results since the weekend.
The doctor will, therefore, not have seen the result yet, and will not be able to act on the result until it is received.
We have also not received any electronic hospital letters this week, and this means the doctor can’t act on any of the advice given in letters until he/she does.
What does this mean for the doctor and those working at the practice?
Once the problem is resolved, all the test results and letters that weren’t sent yet will suddenly arrive at the same time. Normally, the practice receives around 150 letters per day and around 500 results per day. When all these come through, we can expect around 1000 letters and 2500 results to come through.
As you can imagine, it will take some time for the GPs to catch up with the enormous amount of paperwork that suddenly lands on their desk.
Please bear with them as they work through this enormous workload.
Thank you.
