Welsh Police Urge 101 and 999 Calls Amid Microsoft Outage 2026

Key Points

• Online reports cannot be submitted to Welsh police services, such as South Wales Police and Dyfed-Powys Police because of a worldwide Microsoft outage.
• In response to this problem, both South Wales Police and Dyfed-Powys Police advised individuals to use the 101 number for non-emergencies and the 999 number for emergencies.
• The outage began late on Thursday, 12 November 2026, affecting Microsoft Outlook, Teams, Copilot, and some portions of Microsoft 365.
• According to Microsoft, solutions that included isolating parts of their infrastructure and redirecting the traffic “are not taking as expected.”
• Charles Lamanna, a Microsoft executive vice-president, claimed that there is no reason to believe the problem had anything to do with malicious or cyber activity.
• The GMB union stated that the outage affects the processing of patient information by 111 and 999 services but did not affect emergency callouts.
• As for the UK Government, it stressed that it worked closely with Microsoft and examined the implications of the incident on government services; the Defense Minister Luke Pollard said contingency plans were in place.
• According to Downdetector, there was a surge in Microsoft Teams reports in the UK at about 6:15 pm on Thursday; over 130,000 Outlook-related reports were made in the United States in the meantime.
• The outage also impacted GP surgeries, pharmacies, parliamentary accounts of MPs, schools, businesses, while major airports and UK intelligence were unaffected.

Wales (Wales Times) November 13, 2026 – Police forces in Wales have told the public not to rely on online crime-reporting forms because a global Microsoft outage is preventing reports submitted through their websites from reaching officers. South uk/police/">Wales Police and Dyfed-Powys Police have both confirmed technical difficulties and urged people to use telephone or social-media contact routes instead.

As reported by WalesOnline, South Wales Police said on Facebook that it was experiencing technical difficulties because of the global Microsoft service issue. The force told residents to call 101 for non-emergency situations and 999 in emergencies.

Dyfed-Powys Police also acknowledged that problems with Microsoft Outlook had affected its ability to process online reports and manage email at its general contact centre. The force advised people with non-urgent matters to call 101 or send a direct message through social media, while repeating that emergencies should be reported by calling 999.

The disruption is part of a wider international failure affecting several Microsoft products. ITV News reported that users continued to experience problems on Friday, with issues first appearing in the UK at about 6.15pm on Thursday, according to Downdetector.

Which Microsoft services are affected?

The outage has affected Outlook email, the Teams messaging and collaboration platform, the Copilot AI assistant and some Microsoft 365 cloud services. Users have reported being unable to send or receive emails and access other widely used workplace tools.

Microsoft said the problem began after a large number of its servers became “unexpectedly available”. This meant traffic was redirected to the servers that remained online, placing them under excessive strain.

The company said it had attempted several measures to restore service, including isolating parts of its infrastructure and shifting traffic to alternative routes. However, in an update, Microsoft said: “We’ve monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed that change is not taking as expected.”

Overnight, Microsoft said its teams had seen positive results while restarting affected systems and monitoring performance. It later repeated that the recovery was not proceeding as hoped, before saying it was focused on restoring frontend servers and optimising traffic to improve stability and capacity.

Is the outage a cyber-attack?

Microsoft has said there is no indication that the disruption was caused by a cyber-attack or malicious activity. As reported by ITV News, Microsoft executive vice-president Charles Lamanna wrote on X: “We regret that today’s outages caused disruptions for our customers, and we are working to address the issue.”

He added: “We will continue to share more information as soon as we have it, and for now I can confirm that there is no indication this is the result of malicious or cyber activity.”

The BBC also reported that Microsoft and cyber-security experts had ruled out a cyber-attack as the cause. The company attributed the incident to higher-than-usual stress on its servers.

How are emergency services affected?

The GMB union reported that the outage was affecting emergency services, preventing 111 and 999 services from processing patient information as usual. According to WalesOnline, the union said the situation was causing significant delays, although emergency callouts appeared to remain unaffected.

Rachel Harrison, national secretary of the GMB, said the Microsoft outage was severely affecting ambulance services and NHS trusts. She said it was creating a substantial backlog and risking chaos, while noting that life-threatening emergencies were still being managed.

The BBC reported that the London Ambulance Service’s critical platforms do not use Microsoft and were therefore unaffected. It also reported that operations at Heathrow, Manchester and Stansted airports were continuing as usual.

The National Pharmacy Association said the outage was affecting pharmacies’ ability to communicate with GP practices and some patients. It warned that waits may be longer than normal and that some prescriptions could be delayed.

How is the UK Government responding?

The UK Government said it was working closely with Microsoft to assess any impact on government services. A government spokesperson said contingency plans were in place to address the ongoing situation.

Defence Minister Luke Pollard told BBC Breakfast that the government was assessing the impact of the outage on its systems and would issue a statement once that assessment was complete.

As reported by WalesOnline, Mr Pollard emphasised the need for greater resilience against technological failures. He said reliable technology was important in everyday life.

MPs have also been affected, with the BBC reporting that they were unable to access parliamentary accounts. A spokesperson said alternative arrangements were in place to allow the day’s parliamentary business to proceed.

Which other public services are affected?

The disruption has extended beyond Wales. The BBC reported that some GP surgeries had urged patients not to submit messages through their websites while the issue continued, and that practices in Hampshire and Shropshire had advised patients to telephone or attend the surgery if they had urgent needs.

Dr Tim Frank, a GP in Penzance, told the BBC that the practice had received no emails that day. He said that if problems with Microsoft Teams continued, they could cause delays and affect patient care.

The Metropolitan Police, Greater Manchester Police and North Yorkshire Police also issued statements saying online forms may be affected. They advised people to call 101 for time-critical but non-emergency reports.

Elsewhere, the BBC reported that some teachers had been unable to access calendars, emails and files stored on cloud servers. National Rail said the outage may have affected customers’ ability to access train tickets by email.

How widespread is the disruption?

Monitoring service Downdetector first recorded a spike in reports concerning Microsoft Teams in the UK at around 6.15pm on Thursday. ITV News reported that problems were still being reported at 3am on Friday.

According to WalesOnline, more than 130,000 Outlook-related problems were reported in the United States at the peak of the outage. By 7am, reports of Outlook issues had been logged from 72 countries.

Reuters reported that the disruption stretched into Asia-Pacific business hours on Friday after affecting thousands of users in the United States. It said Microsoft was struggling to fix server problems it blamed for the outage.

ITV News reported that governments in Australia, India and Japan also reported Microsoft outages. OpenAI said it was investigating an issue with Microsoft connectors, in which new connections could be broken and tools were not working as expected.

What happens next?

Microsoft has said it is working with urgency to restore services and has been providing updates through its official Microsoft 365 accounts. The company said it was monitoring the performance of restarted systems and attempting to stabilise traffic across its infrastructure.

Microsoft also said it had extended the email timeout window to 48 hours to protect delayed messages during the recovery process.

For people in Wales, police forces have made clear that online reporting cannot currently be relied upon. South Wales Police and Dyfed-Powys Police continue to direct non-emergency contacts to 101 and emergencies to 999.

Background of the development

Microsoft 365 is used by many public bodies, businesses, schools and healthcare organisations for email, cloud storage, messaging and collaboration. The latest disruption began on the evening of Thursday, 12 November 2026, and continued into Friday, 13 November.

Microsoft said the incident was linked to server availability and traffic congestion rather than malicious activity. Cyber-security adviser Jake Moore of ESET told the BBC that the situation demonstrated the need for contingency communication networks that are independent of individual providers.

Prediction: How this affects Welsh residents

For Welsh residents, the immediate effect is likely to be slower non-emergency contact with police and possible delays in online administrative processes. People who need to report a crime should use 101 for non-urgent matters and 999 for emergencies, rather than waiting for website forms to work.

Residents who use NHS services may experience delays in communication with GP practices and pharmacies, particularly where email systems are affected. The National Pharmacy Association has warned that some prescriptions may take longer than usual to process.

If the outage continues, public bodies may need to rely more heavily on telephone lines, in-person services and social media. The incident also highlights the importance of backup communication arrangements for households, businesses and public services that depend on a small number of major cloud providers.