'I missed a hospital appointment due to Royal Mail delays'

A woman has said she missed a hospital appointment after receiving her letter "two days after" the date she was supposed to attend.

Meg McClelland said she was now waiting on a new appointment, as the one she had has expired.

It comes after more than a dozen Royal Mail postal staff from different delivery offices claimed rounds were being missed on a daily basis and parcels were being prioritised over letters as they were stretched beyond capacity.

In a statement Royal Mail said the "vast majority of mail in Northern Ireland is delivered on time", but it "may temporarily not be possible due to local issues such as high levels of sick absence".

In another statement on Tuesday afternoon, Royal Mail said "local teams are taking action to support deliveries by redeploying resources and progressing recruitment as quickly as possible".

Lisburn and Banbridge delivery offices are currently among the "most impacted" in Northern Ireland, according to Royal Mail's website.

In Lisburn, McClelland said her deliveries had been "awful".

"I'm waiting for a hospital appointment and didn't get it. The hospital appointment had expired.

"Over Christmas (it was) really bad, and a few of my friends and family also said the same thing, that they weren't getting deliveries to the house."

She added that she had "not really" complained, "just vented you know? But I know my family have. They've put in complaints but I don't think there's anything being done about it".

She said it was "very disappointing".

"I never had any problems with Royal Mail up until Christmas."

Kevin Barry from Banbridge said he had received an appointment letter for a medical scan less than 24 hours before it was due to take place.

"I got it on Thursday at two o'clock, and the appointment was at a quarter to two on the Friday at Daisy Hill [hospital in Newry].

"So I didn't get much time did I?

"I think hospital letters are more important than parcels.

"What are the politicians going to do about it?"

Winifred Irvine from Portaferry is not surprised by the issues Royal Mail are experiencing.

Her problems began at Christmas when her son and his family visited from England and she promised to post their presents, rather than them have to carry them back in their luggage.

She had asked for pre-printed labels to be provided, but her presents were not picked up that day.

Irvine re-booked, however she did not ask for the printed labels this time. The presents, worth £500, were collected and she "has not seen them again".

The parcels ended up in the Mallusk sorting depot and she was told they would be opened to see if there was an address to return to her, but if not the parcels would be "sent to auction".

Irvine added she has been to Mallusk but they would not let her get her parcels.

Describing the experience as "absolutely dreadful", she said it was "annoying that all their first proper Christmas presents have disappeared".

A Royal Mail spokesperson apologised for any distress and said they have been "actively engaging" with Irvine to "help identify and return her parcels".

"Our National Returns Centre has received photographs and full descriptions of the contents and will work to match these against items as they are processed."

They said thousands of unlabelled or incorrectly addressed item must be examined individually, and it makes "locating specific parcels" extremely difficult.

Natalie McNeilly said deliveries were "very slow" and then "quite a few" letters tend to come at once.

"It's probably about once a fortnight we get post and then there's maybe about six things and you have a letter from the hospital that's dated three weeks previously," she said.

"I've just got another letter, my husband's license – a final demand - and we haven't got the original form.

"So we had to email them and say we haven't got the original form and are just waiting to see now what happens."

The Alliance assembly member (MLA) Michelle Guy met Royal Mail on Tuesday.

"I've been hearing from people for months now on this issue, it got particularly acute now after Christmas," she said.

The Lagan Valley MLA added that she was "overwhelmed" with responses when she asked constituents about the scale of the issue.

She said people were not receiving "vital correspondence" such as hospital appointments and banks cards and it was "having a real impact on people's lives".

"Having a postal service is not a luxury, it's an expectation that we all have and right now, it's not working."

Speaking after meeting Royal Mail on Tuesday, Guy said she had a "bit of disappointment" that it was not "fully acknowledge that some of the complaints that have come through perhaps haven't been taken as seriously as we would like".

She said she felt that going forward there is a commitment to resolve the issues.

She said she will follow up with the communications regulator Ofcom regarding the issues.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: "We understand how important it is for people to receive their post and how frustrating it can be when it does not arrive as expected.

"We want to reassure customers that the vast majority of mail in Northern Ireland is delivered on time.

"Where short-term delays do occur, they are usually limited to individual routes and can be caused by temporary factors such as sickness absence or resourcing pressures.

"When this happens, performance is reviewed locally and additional support is put in place to restore regular deliveries as quickly as possible."

They said they were updating their website daily to "reflect short-term, localised issues".