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Pharmacy turns away patients over global IT issues

A pharmacy has had to turn away patients picking up prescriptions because of a global IT outage.

Harry Pearson, a pharmacist at Parkside Pharmacy in Benton, Newcastle, said staff were unable to download electronic prescriptions that been issued from doctors' surgeries.

He advised people to go back to their GPs and get a written prescription that "can be processed as normal" if their medication is urgent.

GP surgeries, hospitals and football clubs in the North East and Cumbria have also been affected.

Mr Pearson described how the pharmacy had to go the "long way round" to issue medicines that had been prescribed on Friday.