NHS postage

robatwork

These 4 letters were all delivered on the same day and time. All as a result of 1 appointment I had yesterday with a dermatologist and regarding a follow up patch test, which will be 4 visits over a week to the same hospital department.  They could very easily have been in the same envelope or, better, emailled. 

4 letters to the same person, sent simultaneously and all with separate postage and envelopes is just nuts, and wasteful. The hospital is falling apart and woefully understaffed. Any spare money should be addressing these shortfalls, not funding Royal Mail.

Brie

While I completely agree with you I would say this issue is due to letters being generated by a computer and posted from a different site.  It's not like "Bob" is sitting at a desk booking the appointments and printing off the four different letters and then popping each into a separate envelope (that would be madness!).  

What gets me is that when you talk to someone and book an appointment and state you can do any time except Tuesday afternoons they then change the agreed time and day to a Tuesday afternoon.  And mention that you shouldn't be nasty to any of their staff.  Had this happen repeatedly with a local ortho department.  

Lorian

I've had a letter cancelling an appointment arrive a day before the letter booking it. That may be more symptomatic of issues with the mail 

Robin9

The postage cost is very small compared with the cost of a mossed appointment.

Silvertabby

Back in my LGPS days, separate benefit statements (current employment, deferred, different employers) would be issued in separate envelopes.  Cue complaints from fund members, re the cost of more than one stamp.

The answer was that it was much cheaper - and quicker - to send out the benefit statements this way than incurring the admin costs of an employee paid to collate all statements into the same envelope.

p00hsticks

Doesn't the hospital give you the option of going paperless ?
I get notification of all my appointments via text and e-mail with a link to download the letters. 
They would only follow up with a paper copy if I don't open the link.

J63320

Brie said:
…

What gets me is that when you talk to someone and book an appointment and state you can do any time except Tuesday afternoons they then change the agreed time and day to a Tuesday afternoon.  And mention that you shouldn't be nasty to any of their staff.  Had this happen repeatedly with a local ortho department.  

A couple of years ago, the hospital that looks after me got a fancy new website. It uses the website to notify me when I have an appointment - but it sends letters as well, so no postage savings.  It also uses the website to send clinic letters - these are not duplicated by post, but they are not retained on the site either, so I have to print them (luckily I was tipped off about this by a friend who had not printed hers, and when she logged in to refer to it, it had disappeared).
The problem with this website is that it’s one-way - I can’t use it to communicate with the hospital. So if the appointment isn’t convenient, I have to phone, and then I have exactly this problem - they take no notice at all of what I tell them about my availability. Recently it took about six phone calls to get a satisfactory appointment for a non-urgent scan. After getting a couple of appointments I had to cancel because they ignored what I said, I finally got someone who would re-book it while I was on the phone.  But a week later they called me to tell me the doctor wanted me to have this scan. Yes, I said, I know, I’ve got an appointment. They had no record of it.

robatwork

Robin9 said:

The postage cost is very small compared with the cost of a mossed appointment.

I read that as mossad, appointments with whom would probably be extremely costly

ButterCheese

My wife has had similar issues; the NHS (or at least our local hospital) are now only allowed to use 2nd class postage to save costs.  She also has an appointment coming up and had to provide 2 blood tests which were coming in the post...and have still not arrived....so then had to phone through and say there's no point coming to my appointment if my blood tests haven't arrived

Albermarle

ButterCheese said:

My wife has had similar issues; the NHS (or at least our local hospital) are now only allowed to use 2nd class postage to save costs.  She also has an appointment coming up and had to provide 2 blood tests which were coming in the post...and have still not arrived....so then had to phone through and say there's no point coming to my appointment if my blood tests haven't arrived

I think this is partly down to wide regional variations in the postal service. Some areas seem to have a lot more problems with delayed post than others.

username

p00hsticks said:

Doesn't the hospital give you the option of going paperless ?
I get notification of all my appointments via text and e-mail with a link to download the letters. 
They would only follow up with a paper copy if I don't open the link.

I find all of these paperless things more hassle than it is worth, another set of logins and passwords of varying complexity. How can there just not be an equivalent, such as the actual letter content being sent as an email?
I would also hazard a guess that the NHS must get some sort of discount on the retail price of a stamp, given the volume of letters they do send.