Royal Mail delays: Harlow residents miss hospital letters and bills

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-67101196


Residents from an Essex town say they are missing bills and hospital appointments because of Royal Mail delays.

Some people in Harlow said they had not received post for up to four weeks.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said it hoped to soon restore "our quality of service to our customers".

The company announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs last year, but it is recruiting more staff again ahead of the Christmas period.

Ivor Thurgood, 79, from Harlow, said: "The problem is, I'm waiting for hospital appointments, the letters never turn up, and sometimes the appointment I should have had has gone and it's annoying."

Royal Mail said they hope to "restoring our quality of service to our customers."

Mr Thurgood said the problem had been ongoing for almost four months.

"I do sometimes get annoyed but there is nothing you can do about it - that's the problem," he told BBC Essex.

Christmas worries
Another resident, who did not want to be named, said she received a letter almost a month after it was delivered by the sender.

"It's a good job it wasn't an urgent one," she added, claiming she will go three weeks without mail before receiving 20 items in one go.

A third resident, who also did not wish to be named, said: "People can't trust it now, thinking around Christmas, I will have to think about how to do that without that service."

Royal Mail said it had recruited 3,000 postmen and postwomen in the UK over the last six weeks and was still hiring about 500 permanent delivery positions each week.

The firm, which was a publicly-owned service until 2013, also said it had introduced a "wellbeing programme" offering free-of-charge 24-7 healthcare support for staff.

"We have plans in place and dedicated teams responsible for improving deliveries in Harlow and throughout our delivery offices nationwide," said the spokesperson.

"These actions plus others are already making a difference in some areas and we are confident that they will continue to improve quality of service for our customers."

About 16,000 temporary workers, more vehicles and more "parcel sorting sites" were being arranged in the "lead up to Christmas", Royal Mail said.

[POSTMAN]

https://www.yourharlow.com/2023/10/19/r ... -the-town/

Robert Halfon MP: Royal Mail managers continue to let down residents across the town

Statement from the Rt. Hon. Robert Halfon MP Royal Mail Postal Services in Harlow

DESPITE the efforts of the hard working postmen and women in Harlow, Royal Mail managers continue to let down residents across the town – the service they are providing for Harlow people is simply not good enough. It is wrong that letters and parcels which have been sent are not being delivered on time, if at all, despite the correct postage being paid.

At present, my constituents tell me that they are lucky to receive one postal delivery every two weeks and, even then, they have been told by Royal Mail staff that only deliveries including parcels are being prioritised. I understand this issue is affecting addresses in the CM17, CM18, CM19 and CM20 postcode areas.

The people of Harlow deserve a reliable, efficient and safe postal service to deliver parcels and letters. I have heard countless examples of missed hospital appointments, delayed birthday and celebration greetings and cancelled orders due to Royal Mail’s failure to deliver. This is simply unacceptable.

Royal Mail has a universal service obligation and they must take urgent action to restore deliveries across Harlow and to clear the backlog. In recent weeks, the service the people of Harlow have received from Royal Mail has fallen far below the standard I and my constituents expect and, despite raising my concerns locally and with colleagues in the Public Affairs department, the service in Harlow has not improved.

As a result, I have escalated my concerns within Royal Mail and have raised my concerns with the Government. Despite having written to Royal Mail’s Chief Executive Officer in September to express my concerns and to demand a better service for Harlow people, I am yet to receive a satisfactory response that reassures me of an imminent and significant increase in performance.

It is clear to me that senior management within Royal Mail do not care enough to take the action required, instead blaming their poor performance on staff recruitment issues. The hardworking postmen and women in Harlow do not deserve to be overworked nor blamed for what seems to me to be a case of poor leadership and management.

Therefore, I am once again calling on Royal Mail to take decisive action to address their operational issues in Harlow and deliver a postal service in which my constituents and I can have confidence.

[SMS1969]

You can call upon Royal Mail all you want, nothing will change. New starters are leaving, not realising the amount of work that they are given is far more than they thought they’d have to do. And managers continue to annoy hard working posties with their ridiculous demands, such as leaving mail in their frames to help clear tracked on other duties.