GP surgeries and businesses who use Microsoft are facing major outages in the UK and around the world, with laptops and systems not working.

Sky News was one of the companies that were affected, being unable to broadcast its morning show at 6am, with viewers being left with a static message apologising for the 'disruption' to the service.

The outage has impacted banks, IT firms and airlines all through this morning (Friday, July 19).

GP surgeries have said they are unable to access patient records or book appointments due to the major global IT outage.

NHS England has been contacted for comment after practices took to social media to report they cannot access the EMIS Web system.

Pocklington Group Practice in the East Riding of Yorkshire said: “Due to ongoing Windows issues affecting IT worldwide, the practice is currently unable to function as normal.

“This may result in appointments needing to be cancelled and rearranged. Updates will follow when available.”

Why is the Microsoft outage happening?

Tech journalist Chris Stokel-Walker suggested the major Microsoft outage was due to an update from the computer threat checker Crowdstrike Falcon.

He posted on X (formerly known as Twitter): "Good morning. Stay in bed today. Early reports suggest Crowdstrike Falcon - a computer threat checker used by lots (and lots and lots) of businesses pushed out an update that might have broken a lot of computers. Airlines, businesses etc affected".

On X, Microsoft 365 status acknowledged the issue that was affecting many users around the world.

Posting early on Friday morning, it said: "We're investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services."

In a thread of updates, they shared they were working to reroute the impacted traffic.

Their most recent post said: "Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions."

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People around the world have reacted to their work systems being affected, with one person posting: "How will Microsoft fix this xd when they themselves are using Microsoft for their entire work."

Another shared: "Microsoft Blue Screen Error happening Globally? Got this screen for the 5th time back to back."

Meanwhile, another joked: "Early weekend, Thanks Microsoft."