The technical problems at Microsoft today (Friday 13 November) were affecting the council, police, NHS and numerous other organisations and individuals.
Brighton and Hove City Council said: “Due to the ongoing Microsoft outage, council services are experiencing problems accessing emails, sending and receiving messages, with possible delays in email delivery.
“If you have contacted us via email, there may be a delay in our response … We apologise for any inconvenience.”
Sussex Police said: “Our online forms are currently offline. This is due to a global Microsoft service issue.
“If your report is time-critical but not an emergency, please call 101. In an emergency, call 999.”
Staff at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Royal Alexendra Children’s Hospital and the Sussex Eye Hospital, all in Brighton, were among the NHS organisations that were unable to send or receive emails.
University Hospitals Sussex, the trust that runs the three hospitals and four others in the county, said: “You may be aware of the ongoing Microsoft IT issues today, affecting organisations around the world.
“We are currently assessing the impact on our services and systems at our hospitals. However, at present we are unable to send or receive emails.
“For the time being, patients are advised that they should continue to attend their appointments as planned, unless specifically advised otherwise.
“We will provide further updates on our website and social media channels as soon as more information becomes available.”
At Brighton Magistrates’ Court, documents were being printed out to get round the problems with email.
Brighton local ambulance service was also affected as their logins are authenticated via Microsoft. It suggests the importance of diversifying a company’s reliance on one infrastructure.