‘Worrying’ tales of late post

developments in their care and treatment. An efficient, punctual postal service remains a key part of that process,” he said. “At a time when far too many patients already face long delays – the last thing any trust leader wants – anything that adds to that uncertainty, and possibly the worsening of conditions, would be extremely unhelpful.”

The health service has also experience repeated strikes by doctors over the last year. Yesterday, consultants announced they will end strike action after accepting a new pay deal worth up to £20,000 a year.

Healthwatch England, a think tank that makes recommendations on how to improve patient care and safety, said around 3 per cent of the 82 million hospital appointments confirmed with a letter involved letters arriving after the appointment date, based on a representative sample of 2,100 people. It found that two thirds of the public still rely on letters from the NHS to know when their appointment is. Experts estimate that the cost of Did Not Attends (DNAs) is around £1 billion a year in lost NHS productivity.

Louise Ansari, the chief executive of Healthwatch England, said they had “heard worrying stories from people who are exasperated by the late arrival of crucial NHS post”.

She said it would increase health inequalities among those who rely on post and have less access to digital technologies, and urged the Royal Mail “to ensure the most pressing NHS correspondence is not delayed further for the most vulnerable patients.”

A Royal Mail spokesman said the service was “committed to working with a range of NHS bodies to explore options that could provide more reliability for time-sensitive medical letters”.

He added: “Going forward, we will continue to offer them a choice in service levels and pricing, to suit the differing priorities of each part of the organisation.”