By Philip Bradfield

Copyright newsletter

US company Epic – which built the encompass patient information system – was speaking after Health Minister Mike Nesbitt issued a statement about the 1,600 cancelled appointments on Wednesday and Thursday. Mr Nesbitt told MLAs today: “Contrary to some commentary in social media I also wish to provide clarification that this was not related to our new digital systems, but was instead related to the data centres which our systems rely upon”. On Thursday Mr Nesbitt provided reassurance about the “resilience” of the new NHS digital patient information system, “encompass” adding that individual patient health records remained secure. The company which built encompass – Epic – also told the News Letter its system was not to blame. “The Southern Trust is experiencing a local IT infrastructure issue affecting their access to the Epic application,” an Epic spokesman said today. “Epic is not the cause of this issue, and other Trusts using Epic are not affected. We are working closely with the Southern Trust as they follow their business continuity plans and restore full access to Epic.” One source close to events told the News Letter that the trust’s “software or backup” is held outside the trust and that a private company had been “working with the team here at the Southern Trust” to resolve the problem. The Southern Trust yesterday declined to answer any questions on the report. Mr Nesbitt told MLAs a “Root Cause Analysis” of the failure has begun, led by a working group and the trust’s network service provider. The trust itself is setting up an Incident Review Group which will consider lessons to be learned. It has also reported the collapse, he said, to both the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Competent Authority (Network Information Systems Regulator), as required by law, though this was not due to a loss of data. However Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart said the situation causes her “grave concern”. “For me, it is poor form that three or four days later, we’re still none the wiser as to why it happened and how we can prevent this again in future,” she said.