‘I’d be better buying a pigeon’

‘When people are sent a letter, it is not supposed to sit in a pigeon hole for three weeks.’

That’s what one furious Oban resident said about a hospital appointment letter that the Royal Mail took 20 days to deliver to his home last month.

Another vexed Oban resident missed their scan, after a first-class letter sent from Oban hospital took seven days to reach his front door a mile away. It cost the NHS £135.

‘You get no mail for a while, then you get a pile through your door,’ said an exasperated Dunbeg resident, after a card he paid to be delivered first-class 10 days earlier, finally arrived for his wife’s birthday, six days too late.

‘I would be better buying myself a pigeon,’ he said.

These are far from isolated cases, which seem to go on and on. Over the past 10 months, we have reported many local complaints about post being delivered late – or not at all – from the Royal Mail’s Oban Delivery Office on Albany Street.

We focused only on missed medical appointments, which cost the NHS on average £176 each time, not to mention the costs for patients. All these complaints, with the Royal Mail’s responses, can be read on our website.

We began in October, when an Oban resident missed her 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.

In November, a second-class letter sent from Oban’s Lorn and Islands Hospital took 20 days to travel 12 miles to Taynuilt – a distance walkable in a day. The man had missed his appointment, 13 days earlier.

In April, we zeroed in on mail posted by Oban hospital taking up to 12 days to reach Oban addresses. One letter failed to cross Oban in 18 days. The patient only received it when he visited the Oban Delivery Office, trying to track down a missing parcel.

The Royal Mail repeatedly apologised for delays, blaming staff shortages. At last, after three reports in April, it assured us the problems were fixed.

‘We have put in place measures to address these problems and are confident customers should now receive a service of the high standard they are entitled to expect from Royal Mail,’ a spokesperson said.

‘There is not currently any accumulation of mail waiting to be delivered. This has been achieved in part by several new colleagues joining Royal Mail locally.’

Despite this, the same problems returned in June. An Oban resident was waiting a ‘long time’ for an appointment at Inverclyde Hospital. He had missed a previous appointment due to a letter arriving late and he was waiting patiently for the next one.

Then, on Tuesday June 28, he told us: ‘Got about 20 letters on my mat today. One was an appointment that was three weeks late.’ The letter was dated June 8, but luckily the appointment 100 miles away was on June 29, the next morning, which he made – just.

He spoke to a Royal Mail worker at Oban Delivery Office to ask why it took three weeks to get his mail. ‘She said: “That’s about right. We’re short staffed. 15 staff off,”‘ he told us.

‘I explained how upsetting it is waiting for appointment and not getting letters, to which she said if I wasn’t happy come and get my own mail. You think this is acceptable?

‘I was furious. If that had been a cancer appointment, it could have been very serious.’

A second Oban resident was also waiting for an appointment letter, but this time from Oban hospital a mile away. After no mail for weeks, five letters arrived on June 29. One was the letter sent from Oban hospital, postmarked on June 22.

The envelope was franked first class, which the Royal Mail aims to deliver the next working day, including Saturdays. Yet this first-class letter, clearly marked on the envelope ‘Return Address NHS Highlands L&I Hospital PA34 4HH’, took seven working days, to get down the road. It arrived a day late for the appointment.

In the same bundle was a card, posted first class on June 16, in time to arrive for father’s day on June 19. It arrived 10 days late.

Meanwhile a Dunbeg resident had not received any mail since June 17, until a ‘pile’ arrived through his door on June 29. In it was his wife’s birthday card he’d ordered online on June 17, paying for first class delivery.

They were told that, while their usual postie was on holiday, they wouldn’t get any mail, and would just have to wait, he said. ‘I do not order anything, because I do not know when it is coming,’ he added. ‘Something has to be done.’

Following three more complaints to local MSPs Donald Cameron and Jenni Minto, the issue has been raised with the Royal Mail’s CEO, and the UK minister in charge of postal services. One constituent in Connel, whose medical appointment letter didn’t arrive, advised Mr Cameron that ‘several of their friends had similar issues’.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: ‘While the vast majority of mail is delivered safely and on time, we are very sorry for the disappointment that customers have again expressed about our service locally. We understand the distress and inconvenience caused.

‘These delays have been caused by resourcing issues and the high number of absences caused by a recent spike in Covid-19. We have some temporary postmen and women starting work this week, and are in the process of recruiting a number of permanent staff.

‘We can reassure customers there is currently no accumulation of mail waiting to be delivered. When any delivery route has experienced delays, we have rotated deliveries to prioritise that route the next day, so that no customers should experience delays for more than one day.

‘We wish to stress again how grateful we are to our hard-working local colleagues, who have throughout done their utmost to provide the best possible service under deeply challenging circumstances.

‘Anyone who has concerns over the delivery of their mail should contact the Royal Mail customer service team.’

They can also contact The Oban Times.