This is not strictly thyroid related but might be of interest and concern to those who use home blood test services, order their meds online via RM delivery. I hope the admins will permit it.
I've been having problems with RM deliveries since the begining of the year, my previous excellent, reliable postie left ( he was very unhappy with how RM was being run). Since then I get post ( or not) at weird times of the day, I've even had post at 8pm once before.
There is no pattern or consistency. I rarely see the same postie twice. And several times I've had to chase missing or delayed items and have been told that staffing levels at my local sorting office are low. Its a bit of a heartsink moment now when I see something I've ordered coming by RM.
Anyway I spotted this sory in both the Guardian and Independent at the weekend.
Looks to me like they are trying to divert the discussion away from alternate day delivery (or whatever it ends up being) itself but towards discussion about the trivial end of the scale - having a web page.
Let everyone discuss whether the pictograms on the website should be red or green and ignore the half-as-often deliveries.
My suspicions:
If they go to alternate days, that could be M, W and F for some people. But on weeks with bank holidays, they'll simply scrap the M delivery leaving just W and F.
If you get T, Th, S, then they'll scrap S at some point anyway.
If they reduce deliveries, they'll ALSO reduce collections from post boxes. After all, if you are on a long rural round, they are not going to send someone just to empty a few boxes.
If someone posts something to you on Th, and you could expect delivery on F or S under current system, it will definitely not arrive on F. If you are on T, Th & S you just might be lucky and get it on S. More likelt T giving a five day delivery. But if you are on M, W, F, you definitely won't get it until M. And if that is a bank holiday, not until W. So a six day delivery "service" seems entirely feasible.
This will have a significant impact on so many things. Companies will be forced to pay first class or use a non-RM delivery service. Or perform very poorly in practice no matter how fast they are at sending things out.
Obviously, this includes things like NHS appointment letters. It would be ridiculous for them to pay the extra for first class, but we'll hear lots of stories of people not getting the letters until after the appointment - or at least too late to arrange transport, etc.
I think Ofcom has already given the green light for Saturday deliveries of second class mail to cease. In the next breath they announce first class stamps will rise to £1.65 in the next month or so. I must admit I'd forgotten about NHS letters but you are absolutely right to highlight this. Its very concerning.
And as the article points out not everyone has access to the internet to check proposed delivery days. They do seem to assume everyone has a tablet, phone or PC and is tech savvy.
And as I mentioned I've had emails from RM stating they will deliver on such and such a date, only to discover the blasted thing turns up the day after anyway.
I found that the RM tracking facility went down the toilet during Covid.Now they only seem to update it once an item has been delivered. Which is pretty pointless.
I think if this is the way RM go forward, in terms of not just deliveries being less frequent but collections as well, companies that have time sensitive services like home blood testing, will have to go elsewhere.
I cant see how their business will manage on 3 deliveries a week. As it is I always send mine via Special Delivery as I have zero faith in the post.
'They do seem to assume everyone has a tablet, phone or PC and is tech savvy.'
Given that so much shopping of anything and everything is done online these days, I suspect the vast majority of their deliveries are for items purchased online. e.g. Ebay, Etsy as well as many big and small retailers. So RM may be justified there.
But reducing delivery days will just send more sellers/retailers to other delivery companies such as Evri, Yodel etc. It's catch 22 situation I think.
I was thinking of letters rather than parcels. Many elderly people might not be able to go online to see if their area is due a letter delivery, which is what they seem to be proposing. And then they have the cheek to put the price of first class stamps up.
I live a in a busy decent sized town. The main post office in the town centre closed down some time ago. I have an R.S.McColl with post office further down my street. Because I post blood tests I have been asking when the uplifts are. It keeps changing. For a while no post office or post -box had an uplift before 1 p.m. It then changed to 3 p.m. I asked last week, and first uplift is noon, then 5 p.m. Parcels get preference. The mail bag inside the post office for letters is not uplifted until it is full!!!!
Hi Sparklingsunshine I feel your pain. I get my T3 and T4 prescription by post. It’s really hit and miss if they leave the package in my assigned safe place or take it back to the depot. The collection office is open for an hour a day at weird times and when I’ve been there to collect something it’s full of customers ranting and raving at the poor staff. Not sure what to do other than ask my pharmacy to change delivery company. But yep it definitely makes postal prescriptions unreliable.
I order LDN via Roseway and although sent 24 hour tracked its often more than that before it arrives. I can see RM losing custom to other delivery firms, they seem determined to shoot themselves in the foot.
I won’t use companies that use Parcel Force as they won’t leave parcels in my safe place parcel box at all. I tried emailing a company once telling them that I don’t buy from them because they only use Parcel Force. The business insisted they had no problems , ever! I don’t believe it & don’t think that company will last long.
I wish the NHS would send emails & not letters. It seems so costly & wasteful. Maybe there’s a way to arrange for email collection for those not online. The majority are online these days. I missed a very important appointment because the letter was sent 2nd class. Hopeless waste of resources.
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