The GP

My daughter was experiencing some pain in her ears. So bright and early the following morning (but not early enough) I called the surgery's 08444 number to make an appointment. Only to receive a message saying the surgery is experiencing high volume of calls (the apology came first) then please try later...click. It took eight attempts and by the time I got through, the surgery was full for the day and the could not book appointments because the computer system was down. STOP!
Here is a crucial service unable to use its system to make bookings without any fall back method? As a ICT manager I find this rather disturbing. Common sense would say use a paper base fall back system. Common sense would say this is one service that should have a stand alone system built in that would then update the main system when it came back on-line.
I wonder if it was included in the system but had to be cut for budget reasons?