Comment on Blow to NHS as Royal Mail raises prices for bulk users by a third

matelt@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• blackn1ght@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Well there’s email / NHS App, where letters get published digitally. If they do anything like my bank where you can opt-out of paper communcations then that would save some £ by not having to send mail to people that don’t want it. There’s obviously going to be a portion of the demographics that would prefer to receive physical mail, but they’ll be declining over time.

  There’s also 3rd party companies that will handle mail (pick up, processing) and put it into the RM network at the end for a cheaper price than RM do. Not sure if the NHS are using that already though.

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  • matelt@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yeah true, when their systems aren’t malfunctioning (they sent me the same letter 4 times in error when my local trust moved to a new system, despite having opted in for paperless correspondence, but that’s another can of worms).

    I meant letters in general though, could Joe Public use any of those 3rd parties if they want to send, say, a few large letters? I recently tried to do a diy grassroot campaign with my union, we wanted to send badges to our members but the cost of stamps was prohibitively high and we could not find any 3rd party that would do it for us. And we didn’t want to open a business account for what’s likely to be a one off.

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    • blackn1ght@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      No I don’t think so, it’s for bulk senders. I’m guessing the badge made it too thick for a standard 2c post?

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      • matelt@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Exactly, you’re spot on. We decided in the end it was not the best use of our members’ money so we pivoted to self-serve, but it does highlight the unfair monopoly that Royal Mail has on letters.

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