Microsoft outage hits West Midlands fire, police, hospitals and councils

The global Microsoft system outage has impacted businesses and emergency services across the West Midlands.

The outage began last night at around 6pm (November 12) with the company rushing to restore email, Teams and other services.

Microsoft said services are “being gradually restored”.

Businesses, schools and other companies have struggled to access emails.

West Midlands Police, Fire service, councils across the region, hospitals and GP practices have been affected.

A spokesperson for West Midlands Fire Service said: “Like many organisations across the country, West Midlands Fire Service is currently experiencing some disruption to our IT systems as a result of the ongoing Microsoft outage.

“We want to reassure our communities that our emergency response services remain fully operational and are unaffected by these issues.

“Our 999 emergency call handling and frontline firefighting and rescue services are continuing as normal. If you need us in an emergency, we will be there.

“While some of our other systems, including email, are currently affected, we have arrangements in place to manage the disruption and are working to restore normal service as quickly as possible.

“Our message is simple: whatever the disruption behind the scenes, we're still here when you need us.

“In an emergency, always call 999.”