Man waited months for cancer letter due to postal delays

A man has described waiting five months for a hospital letter about a cancer consultation amid widespread postal delays.

John Goode, 79, from Bulkington, Warwickshire, was among a number of people from across the West Midlands who told the BBC they had spent weeks waiting for Royal Mail deliveries.

In Rugby, Warwickshire, residents have complained of being left without vital letters causing them to miss hospital appointments and fines amid staffing shortages.

A spokesperson for Royal Mail told the BBC a national change to the way post is delivered was being rolled out across all delivery offices to meet targets set by regulator Ofcom after repeated fines.

"The changes are designed to provide a more reliable and efficient service while protecting six-day-a-week First Class deliveries," they added.

The BBC has been contacted by people living in Dudley, Bulkington, South Warwickshire and Nuneaton, each with complaints about the service they say they are not getting from Royal Mail.

Among them was Goode, who described how he had only just received a letter about an NHS throat cancer consultation that had been sent on 11 May.

"At Christmas I had 16 letters, including Christmas cards, delivered in one bundle wrapped in an elastic band at the end of January," he added, explaining postal problems had become a major topic of conversation in his village.

"We seem to get parcels, [it's] not too bad," he said. "But letters have gone."

Royal Mail said a delay of five months "would be highly unusual" and was not representative of the usual service.

"More than 99% of all letters are delivered within a week so longer delays are not common," they added.

Cathy Sullivan, 68, said she had experienced issues in the DY1 postcode of Dudley for at least the past four weeks.

"The only reason I know that there was an issue [is] it was our wedding anniversary on the 2 September and people were texting me and saying 'did you get my card', and I'm thinking 'well no, I haven't'.

"We didn't receive any cards, so it's been going on since then."

She also said trying to contact Royal Mail for answers took too long, having seen waiting times of nearly 40 minutes on a recent call.

Colin Tinsley from Nuneaton, Warwickshire, said he had seen three years of postal issues and blamed part of the issue on the retirement of a regular delivery worker.

The 70-year-old said he had previously gone 12 days without post before 15 letters arrived at once, and had now moved to paperless bills, banking and NHS letters to avoid issues.

"We don't even buy stamps now because we don't post anything," he said, adding the situation was worsened by the fact he sees daily delivery vans on his road but did not always get post to his address.

"It's just ridiculous, really," he added.

Meanwhile, in Northend, south Warwickshire, 83-year-old Dave Compton said he had received out-of-date deliveries of the Radio Times due to delayed post.

"It annoyed me so much that I was moved to write to our MP [Sir Jeremy Wright] about it," he said.

In a statement to the BBC, Royal Mail said the new delivery model would still see First Class letters delivered six days a week, with second class post and other items delivered on alternate weekdays.

It also pointed to falling levels of post and said data suggested the average home receives four letters a week meaning "there can be days when a household simply has no mail due for delivery, rather than a delivery having been missed".

The organisation also said the modern mail bag contains more than just letters and each item will have a different expected delivery time - meaning several items with different delivery time frames can arrive on the same day.

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