Microsoft outage hits emergency services and local authorities in Lincolnshire

Emergency services and local authorities in Lincolnshire say they are experiencing issues related to a global ‘outage’ in Microsoft services.

Microsoft is scrambling to restore services after a global outage has left users worldwide without access to emails and Teams. The issue began late on Thursday afternoon and has seen users unable to access many of its most popular services, with thousands worldwide reporting they are unable to send and receive emails through Outlook.

Police forces are saying they have not been receiving reports made through their websites as a result of the Microsoft outages.

At 9.50am today (Friday, November 13) Lincolnshire Police said via Facebook: “We are experiencing limited disruption currently due to the global Microsoft service issue.

“If you submit an email or online report, some of these maybe affected.

“If your report is time-critical but not an emergency, please call 101. In an emergency, call 999. “

NHS trusts have urged patients to attend appointments as normal amid the Microsoft outage.

NHS leaders say they are “working hard to minimise disruption”.

Sir Ciarán Devane, chief executive of the NHS Alliance, also said it “appears that all clinical and operational systems” are working.

He said: “The Microsoft outage is affecting some NHS services, notably access to email, but it appears that all clinical and operational systems are working effectively.“

NHS leaders and their teams are working hard to minimise disruption, maintain essential services and support staff and patients who may be affected.

“Their priority is, as always, to ensure patient safety and continuity of care,” he said.

“NHS organisations have workarounds in place when email is unavailable, so contingencies are in place to manage situations like this.”

The Microsoft outage is said to be stopping 111 and 999 from referring patient details as they usually would, the GMB Union has claimed.

The issue is creating a “massive backlog” though emergency callouts “appear to be unaffected”.

Rachel Harrison, GMB national secretary, said: “The Microsoft data outage is having a serious impact across ambulance and NHS trusts.

“Those who work in 111 and 999 services are unable to refer patient details in the normal way which is creating a massive backlog and has the potential for chaos.

“Luckily emergency and life threatening call outs appear to be unaffected.”

There may be delays to some NHS patients getting their prescriptions.

A spokesperson for the National Pharmacy Association said: “We are aware of the disruption impacting pharmacies today, including access to NHS email systems, due to national issues with Microsoft.

“This affects a pharmacy’s ability to communicate with GP practices and some patients.

“Please bear with your pharmacy teams today, where waits may be longer than normal and there may be delays to some prescriptions.”

Lincolnshire County Council said it expects its phone lines to be busier than usual and emails to be disrupted as it deals with the outage.

In a Facebook post the council said: “We’re experiencing disruption due to the ongoing global Microsoft outage.

“Most of our systems are operating as normal, but you may experience delays when sending or receiving emails, and it may take us longer than usual to respond.

“Our phone lines are also likely to be busier than normal, so please only call us if your enquiry is urgent or relates to a safeguarding issue.

“Our online forms are continuing to work as normal.

“We’ll share further updates as soon as we have more information. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”

Microsoft said it was seeing “early signs of stabilisation” in its efforts to resolve the outage affecting Outlook and Teams.

In its latest Microsoft 365 status page update, it said: “We are seeing early signs of stabilisation, but service capacity has not yet returned to normal levels and health remains variable as traffic is carefully reintroduced.

“Our primary mitigation path continues to focus on service stability and controlled recovery.”

It added: “As part of this effort, we are extending the email timeout window to 48 hours to help protect delayed messages while service recovery continues.”

Microsoft said: “As of now, we are not aware of any malicious activity that is causing this incident.

“We will continue to treat this incident with urgency and priority until full resolution.

“Once mitigated, we will provide full details of the root cause, defence-in-depth repair items, and more within a post-incident Report.”