IT failure leaves staff at two hospitals relying on paper days before doctors strike

Junior doctors and members of the British Medical Association (BMA) on the picket line outside Cheltenham General Hospital - (PA)

Staff at two major hospitals in the South West have been forced to resort to using paper records after a major incident brought IT systems down on the eve of the doctors’ strikes.

Cheltenham and Gloucester NHS Foundation Trust suffered an IT outage on Wednesday, which it said was the result of a server issue, rather than a cyber incident.