NHS gets service credit for e-mail outage
September 20, 2001
A DoH spokesman explained, "Syntegra will give us a service reduction because something went wrong with their back-up system." He was unable to confirm the exact value of the service reduction.
A spokesman for Syntegra confirmed that the company expects to provide the NHS with a reduction in its next bill following the disruption. Syntegra is currently reviewing the situation with the NHS, he said.
Users have already called on Syntegra to improve its back-up procedures in the wake of the recent firewall failure at a BT datacentre, which caused e-mail delays for thousands of NHS professionals.
The firewall was destroyed on 1 September by a power surge from an electricity supplier, causing severe disruption to external mail from the NHS to the Internet.
The NHS and Syntegra are working to resolve the back-up issues. The DoH spokes- man said, "Syntegra is working with the NHS Information Authority to ensure that the system is improved."
by James Rogers, Copyright © 2001 ComputerWeekly.com Ltd.