West England hospitals resume services after Microsoft Outlook outage
Hospital trusts in Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire have restored normal operations following a global Microsoft Outlook disruption, though some email delays may persist.
A worldwide outage affecting Microsoft Outlook, Teams and the AI tool Copilot disrupted email communications for health services in the West of England. Microsoft attributed the problem to a technical issue unrelated to cyber-attacks or AI agents and reported improvements by early afternoon, noting that email queues were "significantly reduced and approaching normal levels."
Bristol NHS Foundation Trust confirmed that essential hospital services and procedures continued and that fixes had been implemented, allowing operations to resume. The trust warned that some emails might still be delayed and advised patients to call the number on their appointment letters for urgent queries.
Gloucestershire NHS Foundation Trust also reported a return to normal service, while acknowledging possible delays as systems catch up. Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Community Health said its services were operating under established business-continuity plans and urged patients to attend appointments as scheduled unless otherwise notified.
Somerset NHS Foundation Trust stated it was not affected by the outage, though minor email delays could occur. A spokesperson for the NHS Dorset, Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICBS cluster said local NHS services were implementing long-standing contingency measures.
NHS England reminded the public to use 999 for emergencies, call 111, or visit local pharmacies for non-urgent needs. Microsoft noted early signs of stabilisation around 09:30 GMT, but said full capacity had not yet been restored, and that some users might still experience intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery as recovery continued.