A senior NHS whistleblower has warned that serious IT failures at an East London hospital trust could be putting patient lives at risk, amid claims of missed referrals, delayed diagnoses, and widespread disruption across services.
The clinician, who works at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust and asked to remain anonymous, described conditions inside the organisation as “chaos” following the rollout of a new electronic patient record system late last year.
The whistleblower said staff had become deeply concerned about patient safety after repeated technical problems allegedly caused critical information to go missing or fail to reach the correct departments.
“We don’t know if patients are alive or dead,”
the clinician said, warning that the full impact of the failures may not yet be known.
The whistleblower alleged that referrals were not always reaching specialist teams, important medical findings were sometimes not escalated properly, and patients were experiencing significant delays in care.
They also claimed a patient with Covid and cancer died while waiting for a haematology referral after the request was allegedly not received by the relevant department.
The trust has denied there is evidence linking the IT system to patient deaths.
According to the clinician, the disruption has affected multiple areas of the trust, including outpatient appointments, urgent treatment pathways, and support services.
Patients were reportedly attending follow-up appointments without key test results being available, forcing appointments to be rearranged and delaying treatment decisions.
The whistleblower said the situation had placed enormous pressure on NHS staff, with some employees left emotionally exhausted and struggling to cope with the ongoing problems.
“It’s keeping me up at night,” they said.
“We can’t deliver the service we want to for our patients.”
The clinician also claimed that some concerns raised internally were not properly addressed by senior management, leaving staff feeling ignored despite growing fears around patient safety.
Separate concerns were also raised by a patient treated at King George Hospital, they waited nearly two months for biopsy results after initially being told they would hear back within one to three weeks.
The patient said repeated attempts to contact the hospital left them feeling anxious and “completely in the dark”.
When they eventually managed to speak to staff, they were reportedly told delays were linked to the introduction of a new IT system that “no one knew how to use”.
Legal experts say the allegations could raise serious questions around NHS accountability and patient protection.
Clinical negligence solicitor Sanja Strkljevic described the claims as “really quite shocking” and warned they raised concerns about record-keeping, escalation procedures, and whether urgent cases were being managed safely.
She added that if staff concerns had been dismissed internally, it would be “extremely concerning” given the NHS’s legal duty of candour when patient safety incidents occur.
The solicitor also suggested the scale of the allegations could justify a formal inquiry into the handling of the IT rollout and its impact on patient care.
In response to the allegations, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust said implementing a system of such scale had “inevitably caused a number of issues” but insisted there was no evidence the electronic patient record system had contributed to patient deaths.
The trust said teams continue working to resolve the problems across its hospitals.
The controversy has intensified scrutiny over NHS digital transformation projects, particularly as hospitals across England increasingly rely on complex electronic systems to manage patient care, referrals, and medical records.
