'I missed a hospital appointment due to Royal Mail delays'

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8wy1xn51eo

A woman has said she missed a hospital appointment after receiving her letter "two days after" the date she was supposed to attend.

Meg McClelland said she was now waiting on a new appointment, as the one she had has expired.

It comes after more than a dozen Royal Mail postal staff from different delivery offices claimed rounds were being missed on a daily basis and parcels were being prioritised over letters as they were stretched beyond capacity.

In a statement Royal Mail said the "vast majority of mail in Northern Ireland is delivered on time", but it "may temporarily not be possible due to local issues such as high levels of sick absence".

Lisburn and Banbridge delivery offices are currently among the "most impacted" in Northern Ireland, according to Royal Mail's website, external.

"Over Christmas (it was) really bad, and a few of my friends and family also said the same thing, that they weren't getting deliveries to the house."

She added that she had "not really" complained, "just vented you know? But I know my family have. They've put in complaints but I don't think there's anything being done about it".

She said it was "very disappointing".

"I never had any problems with Royal Mail up until Christmas."

Natalie McNeilly said deliveries were "very slow" and then "quite a few" letters tend to come at once.

"It's probably about once a fortnight we get post and then there's maybe about six things and you have a letter from the hospital that's dated three weeks previously," she said.

"I've just got another letter, my husband's license – a final demand - and we haven't got the original form.

"So we had to email them and say we haven't got the original form and are just waiting to see now what happens."

Dorothy Downey said they were no longer getting postal deliveries every day, and when they did they were "not consistent".

"Sometimes our post doesn't come until three or four in the afternoon," she added.

She feels that in general the service is "definitely worse" in recent years, but they had not missed anything important.

The Christmas presents that never arrived
Winifred Irvine from Portaferry is not surprised by the issues Royal Mail are experiencing.

Her problems began at Christmas when her son and his family visited from England and she promised to post their presents, rather than

The Alliance assembly member (MLA) Michelle Guy said she was meeting Royal Mail on Tuesday.

Guy told BBC News NI: "I've been hearing from people for months now on this issue, it got particularly acute now after Christmas."

The Lagan Valley MLA added that she was "overwhelmed" with responses when she asked constituents about the scale of the issue.

She said people were not receiving "vital correspondence" such as hospital appointments and banks cards and it was "having a real impact on people's lives".

"Having a postal service is not a luxury, it's an expectation that we all have and right now, it's not working."

She said she will be challenging Royal Mail on their "service standards".

"We're past the time for answers and excuses, we're actually at the stage where we need to see action.

"We can't have people coming off of waiting lists for hospital treatment."

What have Royal Mail said?
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: "We understand how important it is for people to receive their post and how frustrating it can be when it does not arrive as expected.

"We want to reassure customers that the vast majority of mail in Northern Ireland is delivered on time.

"Where short-term delays do occur, they are usually limited to individual routes and can be caused by temporary factors such as sickness absence or resourcing pressures.

"When this happens, performance is reviewed locally and additional support is put in place to restore regular deliveries as quickly as possible."

They said they were updating their website daily to "reflect short-term, localised issues".