A global Microsoft outage disrupted email and Office 365 services for millions of users worldwide, affecting police, schools, supermarkets, courts and government services across Britain. Microsoft said services are gradually returning to normal, with email approaching normal levels by mid-afternoon, more than 20 hours after disruption began.
Widespread Impact Across UK Services
Patients trying to book GP appointments were told to call surgeries, people were unable to email police with crime reports, and the government used contingency plans to minimise disruption. Courts, councils, pharmacies and countless businesses were among those impacted.
In some cases, staff were told to return to paper-based ways of working as organisations sought workarounds. Issues with Microsoft's Office 365 suite, which includes email, Teams video conferencing and its CoPilot AI tool, were first reported on Thursday evening and spread globally.
Recovery and Official Response
Microsoft said email services are "approaching normal levels," adding that "some users may still experience intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery as recovery continues." The company insisted: "At this time, we have no evidence of malicious activity associated with this incident."
The Met Police said "some online form submissions may be affected," while supermarket Asda revealed customers were unable to reset online passwords or complete registration. National Rail said passengers who bought tickets online after the outage began may struggle to access them, and various local authorities reported email access issues.
Impact on Health and Courts
Around two thirds of hospital trusts and GP practices use Microsoft for emails and meetings. Rachel Harrison, national officer at the GMB union, warned of a "serious impact across ambulance and NHS trusts," saying those working in 111 and 999 services are "unable to refer patient details in the normal way which is creating a massive backlog and has the potential for chaos." She added that "emergency and life threatening call outs appear to be unaffected."
Dr Tim Frank, a GP from Penzance, Cornwall, said: "This is going to be very disruptive. Fridays are a heavily laden day due to the upcoming weekend." A spokesperson for the UK National Pharmacy Association said the outage affected access to the NHS email system, limiting chemists' ability to communicate with GP practices and some patients.
The outage also impacted courts across the country. A member of staff at Westminster Magistrates' Court reported "a lot of delays," adding: "Judges have been unable to access systems, the prosecution hasn't been able to send papers through, and we've been unable to get pre-sentence reports."
Government and Political Reaction
Downing Street urged the public to follow advice on "alternative ways to get in touch" where services are disrupted. A Government spokesperson said: "We are aware of the ongoing global technical issues affecting Microsoft services. We are working closely with Microsoft to assess any impact on government services, with robust contingency plans in place to minimise disruption."
Dame Chi Onwurah, chair of the Commons Science and Technology Committee, said the outage "only serves to highlight once again the lack of resilience in the UK's digital infrastructure, and the dangers that this dependency can pose to our security, economy and public services." UK Minister for Cyber, Liz Lloyd, said the government has been working with Microsoft to establish the full picture and activate contingency plans, adding that the outage mainly affected back-office functions, with 999 calls, NHS 111 services, and HMRC and DWP phone lines unaffected.
More than 430 million people use Microsoft's Office 365 suite, though it is unclear how many were unable to use it. The government said it will review the incident and lessons learned to inform ongoing work to raise digital resilience across the UK.
