Important FAQs regarding a recent service interruption.
What was the incident? / What was impacted?
There was an outage on Accurx services, that for a short period between 12:13 and 12:39 on Friday 9th January prevented users from sending messages, viewing patients in the inbox, and saving information to the medical record. Only simple patient messages were affected and service was restored by 12:44pm the same day. Other message types such as those sent with booking links, questionnaires, attachments, reply options or via batch were not affected.
I cannot see the wording of the message I tried to send in the Accurx inbox. Can I access this?
Unfortunately, during the service outage, the message was not created or sent successfully; as a result, the message content could not be recovered within the inbox or on our database. We are directly contacting users who sent messages during this period and may have been impacted, so they can identify the patient and take any necessary follow-up action.
Do I need to resend the messages?
Your email includes links to patient conversations that were potentially not sent. At the time you may have noticed that the message did not send as usual and may have successfully resent the message already, but we are highlighting all potentially affected messages so where appropriate, you can take any further actions needed (i.e. composing a new message or reaching out to the patient directly).
Can you tell me who the messages have been sent to?
Your original email includes links to the patient inbox where you can find patient information. Unfortunately, during the service outage, messages were not created or sent successfully, as a result, the message content could not be recovered within the inbox or on our database.
You’ll be able to review the affected conversations and where appropriate, follow-up with the patient.
I’m an Admin for multiple organisations, the email I received only named one organisation, why?
As a result of a mail merge, only one of your organisations where you are an admin was listed in the original email.
We have reviewed all organisations where you are an admin user, and identified any users within those organisations that had messages impacted during this incident. The original email from Accurx contained all impacted user emails.
I’m an Administrator and a user listed is away/has left the organisation, how can I see their email?
Our user support team can provide links to the patient conversations that were impacted.
Please send a request to support@accurx.com from your registered email letting us know which user information you need. We’ll provide links to the patient conversations, allowing you to review the affected conversations, and where appropriate, follow-up with the patient.
Please note: Unfortunately we will not be able to forward any original user emails.
Were other messages I sent on the 9th January impacted?
Only messages outlined in your email notification were not successfully sent. All other messages have been sent. Service was only disrupted between 12:13 and 12:39 on Friday 9th January, with service being fully restored by 12:44pm the same day.
How can I be sure other message types have been sent correctly? /What mitigations have you taken?
This incident only affected simple text messages. Other message types such as those sent with booking links, questionnaires, attachments, reply options or via batch were not affected. We have since fixed the underlying error and users will be clearly notified if their message fails to send.
We have verified through application logs that users were correctly shown an error message for other message types. Messages containing questionnaires, patient response links, or attachments are sent via a different mechanism that was unaffected.
When did you discover the issue? (Messages not being sent)
The service outage occurred between 12:13 and 12:39 on Friday 9th January, with service being restored by 12:44pm the same day. On further investigation of the incident on 12th January, we identified that sending of simple patient messages had been impacted. We’ve been continually assessing the users and messages impacted and are now in a position to be able to confirm the impact to you.
Why did the messages fail?
Whilst conducting database maintenance, an update led to a temporary connection failure. This incident occurred between 12:13 and 12:39 on Friday 9th January, with service being restored by 12:44pm the same day.
Has NHSE been notified?
Yes, alongside informing you, we have also notified NHSE.
Do I need to report this to the ICO?
From a data protection perspective, Accurx acts as a Data Processor to the healthcare organisations that use our products (the Data Controller). We are reporting this to you in line with our statutory and contractual requirements to help you assess the impact of this incident on a patient-by-patient basis, and take any further action as necessary.
Have I been charged for the initial failed message?
No. You would not have been charged for these messages.