SNS restores nationwide IT systems after power outage at northern data centre

Portugal’s National Health Service (SNS) experienced nationwide IT disruption on Monday, 19 October, after a power interruption at a northern data centre. SPMS, the Health Ministry’s shared-services body, said the outage affected systems supporting health centres and hospitals. Technical teams had restored most services by about 3pm, including the National User Registry and the Electronic Medical Prescription platform.

The FNAM doctors’ union said the systems had been unavailable from around 10am, preventing clinicians from issuing prescriptions and accessing patients’ electronic health records. The disruption affected local health units across the country. Without access to those records, staff had difficulty reviewing clinical histories during consultations; some patients were unable to attend appointments or receive vaccinations.

Joana Bordalo e Sá of FNAM argued that recurring outages create uncertainty for health services and add to staff workloads. The union’s criticism concerns the disruption’s effect on patients and clinicians; SPMS, for its part, said the technical cause differed from an earlier incident. According to the agency, two successive interruptions occurred on 19 October: the first was resolved without significant consequences, while the second made information systems unavailable. SPMS said the cause was not the same as the failure on 12 June.

SPMS says it plans to have a new infrastructure in place by the end of the year, supported by PRR funds and designed to provide real-time redundancy for the SNS’s main systems. It also expects to redesign the existing data centre’s power architecture. Restoring the systems does not automatically reschedule appointments that patients missed; people affected may need to contact their health unit for new dates or instructions.