Late hospital mail takes a week to travel a mile

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Royal Mail is under fire again after a pensioner in Oban, who fears she may have cancer, missed seeing medics at Oban hospital because her appointment letter did not arrive at her Longsdale home in time.

The letter arrived a week after it was sent out from the hospital just a mile away.

‘The Royal Mail service is non-existent,’ said Lynda Low, a former nursing assistant at Oban’s Lorn and Islands Hospital, who lives less than a mile away on Hazeldean Crescent. ‘We are lucky if we get it once a week. It has now been 10 days.’

Lynda, 69, is diabetic and when her toenail turned black hospital staff set up an emergency appointment to see her. ‘There is a chance this could be cancer,’ she said.

But on Friday April 1, she received a surprise call from the hospital. ‘They called this morning wondering why I had not turned up for my appointment,’ she told The Oban Times. ‘They said my appointment was half an hour ago.’ Staff told her the appointment letter had been sent a week before.

‘Even if it turns up now, it is too late,’ she said. ‘I feel tearful. I have not been seen by a podiatrist for two years because of Covid. This appointment was very important. They have rescheduled.’

Lynda had also not received the card her son sent for Mother’s Day the previous Sunday, March 27. ‘I want my Mother’s Day card from my boy,’ she said.

When she visited the Royal Mail’s Oban Delivery Office on Albany Street on Saturday April 2 to ask about her missing mail, she was handed a bundle of post, including her late hospital appointment letter.

She said it was written 10 days earlier on Thursday March 24 at Oban’s Lorn and Islands Hospital – the envelope’s return address – and the date of the second-class frank was Friday March 25.

The bundle also included her son’s Mother’s Day card, ‘sent two weeks before’ from Blackpool, she said. ‘They have been holding onto my mail for a fortnight. It was not even out for delivery. What really galls me is I sent a parcel to my brother in the US, and it got there in five days.’

After complaining to Royal Mail, she told us: ‘They said something about there being a partial service in the Oban area. It is not a partial service. There is no ******* service.’

On Monday April 4, The Oban Times office received a week’s worth of post, containing both first and second class envelopes franked as far back as Monday March 28 – a week beforehand.

In November last year, one hospital appointment letter took 20 days to travel less than 20 miles – a distance that could be walked in a day.

The Oban Times was contacted by a resident in Taynuilt, a village 12 miles away from Oban, who received an appointment letter sent by Oban hospital on November 9 (which was also the date the second class envelope was franked), 20 days later on November 29. He had therefore missed his medical appointment on November 16, 13 days earlier.

That month, we reported that Taynuilt residents missed lifesaving Covid vaccines due to first class NHS appointment letters arriving a day or two after their clinics, up to eight days after they were posted.

Over a dozen villagers reported on social media receiving booster appointment letters for a clinic at Taynuilt Village Hall on Thursday November 11 – a day or even two after the event.

They said their letters were dated November 4, post-marked November 5, and posted first class – yet were delivered eight days later on November 13, missing the clinic on November 11.

The Royal Mail chief executive officer’s office apologised – blaming staff shortages – to one affected villager, who also that week received an appointment letter from a Paisley hospital for a serious condition, on the day the procedure was due 90 miles away.

Earlier an Oban resident missed an operation after four first-class letters from a Glasgow hospital, postmarked October 12, 13, 19 and 20, all arrived on the day she was due for surgery on October 26 – 14 days after the first letter was posted. The Royal Mail also blamed disruption on staff shortages.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: ‘The vast majority of mail is delivered safely and on time. We aim to deliver to all addresses we have mail for, six days a week. In the local area, we are experiencing some delays to service due to high levels of sickness absence, Covid-related self-isolation and resourcing issues.

‘We completely understand the disappointment expressed by our customer about missing a hospital appointment after not receiving a letter that the hospital reported having sent, and we apologise to any customers who may have experienced delays to their mail.

‘We have been working hard to get our levels of service back to normal as soon as possible. Anyone who has concerns over the delivery of their mail should contact the Royal Mail customer service team on 03457 740 740 or via the Royal Mail website www.royalmail.com.’

The Oban Times understands a number of new postmen/postwomen are set to start working for the Royal Mail in the local area, which is expected to bring some considerable improvement.