pen and paper

If you look through articles about past cyber-attacks and IT failures on the BBC News website, you’ll find countless examples of organisations that have had to “go back to pen and paper” in the face of disruption.

Rather than an ad hoc workaround, pen and paper systems could be something staff practise using from time to time so that they can switch away from their computers seamlessly if required.

The biggest problem with pen and paper systems is that they don’t scale well, says Gareth Mott, from the Royal United Services Institute.

It’s not just pen and paper that could come in handy.

The BMA said the CrowdStrike outage was "one of the toughest single days in recent times for GPs across England", with doctors forced to return to pen and paper.