Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans NHS England Digital has in place to ensure that critical services continue to operate in the event of a major internet outage.

NHS England ensures that its digital services are built with resilience and redundancy at their core. Critical systems are supported by robust technical architecture designed to maintain continuity where possible during disruptions. We have resilience in our internet access by having multiple connections and we are resilient to local and regional outages. However, a national internet outage would put all digital systems under pressure.

There are comprehensive business continuity plans and disaster recovery processes in place to mitigate digital service disruptions, which are regularly tested and reviewed to aid recovery from significant events.