THE severe IT problems that paralysed work at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester have today been fixed.

Engineers overnight repaired the damaged fibre optic cable that led to the failure of many computers at the RHCH and at Andover War Memorial hospitals on Wednesday.

Patients could not be booked in, files could not be accessed, operations were delayed and X-ray sessions were postponed. Staff had to return to working with pen and paper.

The Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said that the IT was now up and running but there was a backlog of work and it urged people to stay away from the hospital unless for life-threatening reasons until the issues can be resolved.

READ MORE HERE: Winchester's Royal Hampshire County Hospital hit by IT crisis

In a statement it said: "Since Wednesday afternoon our teams have been working hard to respond to significant IT issues across our Andover War Memorial Hospital and Royal Hampshire County Hospital sites, caused by offsite construction work damaging fibre optic cables.

“We’re pleased to share that we have been informed that these issues have now been resolved. As such, we now are working to restore our systems. Unfortunately, as a knock-on effect, our services remain under severe pressure across all our hospital sites and we’re asking the local community for help by thinking carefully about which NHS service may be best for them.

“As alternatives, please remember that 111 and your GP are there to support. If you attend one of our emergency departments for non-life threatening conditions, you will experience a long wait to be seen. Please continue to attend booked appointments and other NHS services as normal unless you are informed directly. Further updates will be issued as more information becomes available.”

The crisis was caused when a workman damaged a fibre optic cable at a building site in the Dummer area near Basingstoke, and affected broadband at around 4,000 homes.

Openreach engineers worked without a break to repair the damage and restore the main connection to the NHS sites.

In a statement today, Openreach said: "A team of 20 specialist engineers worked through the night and have repaired the main NHS circuit; as a result the Royal Hampshire County Hospital and Andover War Memorial Hospital are now back online along with thousands of homes and businesses. We still have a lot of work to do but will continue onsite until everyone is back up and running. We’d like to thank everyone once again for their patience, and will update again later today.”

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