An text message error by an Oswestry doctors' surgery will not happen again, according to the practice manager.
Hundreds of patients at Plas Ffynnon Medical Centre incorrectly received a message on Thursday evening inviting them to an event for cancer patients.
It led to numerous posts on social media as people - some of who received the messages on behalf of their children - voiced their concerns that there could be something wrong.
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This afternoon, practice manager, Nick Storey issued an apology and told the Advertizer that actions are being put in place to ensure it does not happen again.
He said: "I would like to publicly offer my apologies to our patients for the text message that was sent to some patients in error. It was a mistake - human error, and I can only hold my hands up and say 'sorry' for the concern and distress caused.
"We have sent a message to patients to apologise and have spoken to dozens of patients this morning who contacted us directly.
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"We have already looked into what went wrong and have made two immediate changes to our processes to ensure that there is never a repeat.
"Firstly, going forward we will have a two-stage process when we send bulk (batch) messages to our patients so that all text messages are signed off by a second (senior) person to confirm that they are accurate and are being sent to the correct group of patients.
"Secondly, we have changed the settings on our automated text message service to ensure that bulk messages are not sent out when we are closed as I know that last night, our patients had no one and nowhere to turn to when they received the message.
"Once again, we would like to say sorry."
The message included an invite from Shropshire Telford and Wrekin Cancer Programme Team for people to attend an NHS event to share their cancer diagnosis and care in Shropshire to help improve cancer services.
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