Request for information regarding recent nationwide hospital IT outage and system resilience
Sam Malik made this Official Information request to Health New Zealand
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From: Sam Malik
Kia ora,
I am requesting the following information under the Official Information Act 1982 regarding the recent IT systems outage that affected hospital operations across New Zealand in or around January 2026.
* The exact timeline of the outage, including start time, duration, and full restoration of services
* A list of all hospitals, regions, and services affected
* Any internal assessments of the impact on patient care, including delays, cancellations, or adverse events
* Copies of any internal reports, risk registers, or briefings from January 2024 to January 2026 that identified risks relating to:
* IT system resilience
* infrastructure failure
* reliance on third-party vendors
* Any documents or communications indicating prior warnings about the likelihood of a major outage
* Information on staffing levels within IT and digital services over the same period, including:
* total headcount changes
* any reductions, restructures, or hiring freezes
* Any internal analysis of how staffing levels may affect system reliability or incident response capability
* The names of all third-party vendors involved in the affected systems
* Copies of relevant service level agreements (SLAs) and performance reports relating to uptime and incident response
* Any internal or external reviews of vendor performance following the outage
* Copies of any incident review, root cause analysis, or independent investigation reports
* Any recommendations made and timelines for implementation
* Briefings provided to the Minister of Health relating to the outage
* Copies of current contingency plans for IT system failures in hospitals
* Any evaluations of how those plans performed during the outage
Yours faithfully,
Sam
From: hnzOIA
Tçnâ koe,
Thank you for your email.
Under the Official Information Act (OIA), agencies are required to respond
to requests for official information as soon as reasonably practicable and
no later than 20 working days after receiving them.
If your request is for data that Health NZ holds, have you checked
[1]Lighthouse first to see if the data you are seeking is already
published?
Lighthouse is a searchable catalogue that makes a range of data and
analytics products available to New Zealanders to enable easier, faster
access to insights about health services.
You can find further information about how OIA timeframes are calculated,
including the Ombudsman’s OIA calculator, at the link below:
[2]Official information calculators | Ombudsman New Zealand
We will provide a response to your request in line with the statutory
timeframes set out in the OIA.
We appreciate your understanding and patience during this time.
Ngâ mihi,
Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora
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From: hnzOIA
Kia ora Sam,
Thank you for your request for information on 25 March 2026 regarding IT
systems outages. Please find attached our response to your request.
If you have any questions, please get in touch at
[1][email address]
If you are not happy with this response, you have the right to make a
complaint to the Ombudsman. Information about how to do this is available
at [2]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or by phoning 0800 802 602.
Ngā mihi,
Cassandra
Government Services
Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora
Statement of confidentiality: This email message and any accompanying
attachments may contain information that is IN-CONFIDENCE and subject to
legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use,
disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have
received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and
delete this message
References
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1. mailto:[Health New Zealand request email]
2. file:///tmp/
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