Melanie Ward: Royal Mail isn't delivering
Recently on Facebook I asked constituents to share your experiences with Royal Mail’s late delivery of letters.
I am grateful to everyone who took the time to engage with me, as your views help to shape my next steps in tackling this issue.
The responses to the post were clear. One mother told me that her 18-month-old daughter's immunisation appointment letter never arrived, and that she only found out the appointment was that same afternoon because she happened to call the hospital herself.
I’ve also been informed about patients being sent to the back of year-long queues for knee replacement surgery, due to late letter delivery. Other constituents described the slow delivery of financial letters and bills, leading to fines for late payments from Fife Council and utility companies.
Overwhelmingly, residents told me about the emotional distress caused by personal letters going missing or arriving late.
These stories, together with the rising number of Royal Mail cases my team and I deal with each week, show that something clearly isn't working.
That's why I recently wrote to Royal Mail, alongside neighbouring Labour MP, Richard Baker, to ask what is being done and why the service is declining.
Royal Mail recently changed its delivery patterns so that second-class mail is delivered only every other day, but even that reduced standard isn't being met. Constituents are receiving bundles of late post all at once, then nothing for weeks. Parcel deliveries, meanwhile, continue to arrive on time.
In April, Royal Mail announced that they would invest £500 million into improving letter delivery services over the next five years. However, the letter service seems to be getting worse. This simply isn't good enough.
I will soon be meeting with senior Royal Mail executives, alongside Richard Baker MP, where we'll put evidence from our constituents to them directly.
In the meantime, Richard and I have written jointly to NHS Fife, asking them to increase phone and email appointment notifications, especially whilst problems with Royal Mail delivery continue. Late letters shouldn’t mean missed appointments
If you've had a poor experience with Royal Mail letter delivery, please email me at [email protected] so that I can raise it directly with Royal Mail.