As reported below I was able to log on to my record and then notice a legion of problems. Later I was alerted to the fact that the system was in a System Maintenance window.
That I got into the system with no warning reveals utter incompetence on the part of those undertaking the project.
Further what sort of clinical system just goes off-line without some fall back procedures being in place? If there is not a secondary backup system - in some form - then the concept of a system for use in emergent situations is clearly not being catered for. A national system of this type is meant to offer virtually 100% availability and I have accidentally found 2 periods of over 5 hours in one week when it was off line.
Why provide emergency access to a system that may not be available and takes ages to log on to?
Clearly there are no responsible adults - let alone clinicians - defining how this system should resourced and behave.
Utterly hopeless.
David.
Note @8:50am 16/8/2012. The System seems to be back to its normal and pretty useless and empty state.