NHS Highland declared a critical incident this afternoon after it lost access to some of its digital systems.
The issue, which is now resolved, had NHS IT staff scrambling to repair vital processes around 1pm.
While some systems were rendered inaccessible for a time, NHS patients were still asked to attend appointments as normal unless directly instructed not to.
Systems were brought back online around 5pm.
The incident was confirmed not to be a cyber attack and no patient details were compromised.
An investigation will now take place internally to reflect on the incident.
In a statement, the health board said: “Declaring a Critical Incident allows us to coordinate our response across the organisation and bring in any additional support if needed.”
NHS Highland announce critical incident
Systems are now confirmed to be “stable”.
In a further statement, an NHS spokesperson said: “NHS Highland has now closed the Critical Incident declared in response to a network fault that affected digital systems.
“Thanks to the work of our teams and partners, systems are now stable and services across NHS Highland are operating as normal.
“We would like to thank our staff, patients, and partners for their understanding and support during the incident.
“We can confirm this was not a cyber attack, and that no patient records were compromised.
“A full post-incident review will be carried out to ensure we capture learning and continue to strengthen our resilience.
“Patients should continue to attend appointments as planned. We will provide any further updates if required.”
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