Snail mail means hospital slot is missed after nine-month wait

A woman who had been waiting for nine months for a hospital appointment missed her slot after the letter informing her took four weeks to be delivered because of Royal Mail outages.

Iona Lennon, a chartered surveyor from Gloucestershire, had been waiting since last September for a hospital appointment. A letter sent first class almost four weeks earlier confirming her date did not arrive until Monday — the same day as the appointment, meaning that she missed it.

Residents in some postcodes claim that letter deliveries are now regularly being made on a fortnightly basis as Royal Mail faces a regulatory investigation into its dire performance.

The postal service faces a fine of up to £750 million after Ofcom opened a probe into why more