Tag: UK

Make the most of your Christmas post

Posted by | Nov 27, 2007 | |

Every year customers take their time choosing Christmas cards for friends and relatives. They then spend time carefully thinking up messages that carry their love and best wishes.

According to Royal Mail some 400 million Christmas cards are poorly addressed or badly written every year. About 5 million are so badly addressed or just not addressed at all that they cannot be delivered. Many cards are eventually destroyed.

It could also be the case this year that cards and packets are not delivered because the incorrect postage has been used. Although pricing in proportion was in place last December because it was new the Royal Mail adopted a common sense approach to surcharging for underpaid postage and largely waived it. This is the first Christmas when Royal Mail will be surcharging receiving customers for cards and packets failing the pricing in proportion test. Receiving customers might find themselves having to queue, at this busy time of year, at Callers Offices to pay the underpaid postage plus the GBP 1 per item handling fee.

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Consultation starts on changes to Post Office network – (Yorkshire, UK)

Posted by | Nov 27, 2007 | |

Post Office Ltd opened a six-week local public consultation on its Area Plan for North Yorkshire, Yorkshire East and Keighley.

The Area Plan proposes future provision of Post Office services through a network of 271 branches across the area, including 23 outreach service points, while 31 existing branches would close (see full list below).

Under the proposals, more than 99.7 pct of the area’s population will either see no change, or will remain within one mile of an alternative branch.

The 23 outreach services would use innovative ways to continue to provide Post Office services- particularly in smaller communities – where the existing branch is proposed for closure.

Possible types of outreach service could include a mobile service visiting small communities at set times, a hosted service operated within a third party premises for restricted hours each week, or a partner service within the premises of a local partner such as a pub landlord.

Post Office Ltd is now seeking views on the proposed future service provision in the area, in particular views on access to Post Office services, the accessibility of alternative branches to those proposed for closure and the appropriate form of outreach to be provided. Consultation is due to end on 17 January 2008.

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Postcomm confirms changes following review of 2006-10 Price Control

Posted by | Nov 26, 2007 | |

Postcomm, the independent regulator for postal services, has, following a consultation, decided to confirm its proposals made in August 2007 that Royal Mail should be given extra flexibility to increase some retail prices and that access margins should be left unchanged. These decisions are in response to the requests by Royal Mail, TNT Post and UK Mail for a review of some aspects of the 2006-10 Price Control.

As set out in Postcomm’s proposals document published in August, this decision would allow Royal Mail to raise the price of a second class stamp to 29p by 2010, subject to inflation (the original price cap was 26p). The price cap on a first class stamp will not be affected by this decision.

In addition, Postcomm has decided to reject the requests from Royal Mail, TNT Post and UK Mail to change the margin between Royal Mail’s prices for bulk mail products and the amount Royal Mail charges other mail operators for access to its network and delivery of bulk mail over the ‘final mile’. Royal Mail had wanted to reduce the margin and the two Access operators argued that it should be increased.

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TNT signs book deal with Gardners

Posted by | Nov 23, 2007 | |

TNT Express has signed a three-year deal to provide delivery services for Gardners Books. Under the multi-million pound agreement, TNT will collect stock from the headquarters of the UK’s largest book wholesaler in Eastbourne, East Sussex, and distribute it to hundreds of independent books stores around the UK.

TNT says the deal is “its first major venture into the wholesale book market” and “an exciting new business element for the company’s burgeoning media and entertainment division”. The firm took over the contract after Gardners’ previous deal with Parcel-force expired.

Danny Geach, general manager, TNT media and entertainment, says: “This market is worth in excess of GBP 180m a year and we see this as a real opportunity. “We believe we won the contract because we are able to provide a high-quality service at a reasonable cost.”

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Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust wins ‘Best Campaign’ award at annual AHC conference

Posted by | Nov 23, 2007 | |

Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust has been presented with the ’Best Campaign’ award at the annual Association of Healthcare Communicators Conference.

Awards were presented to organisations demonstrating the best in industry communications. The ’Best Campaign’ award, sponsored by Royal Mail, was won for the trust’s publicity around the hospital’s bowel cancer screening programme. The activity was described by the judges as ’a superbly devised and delivered campaign, as a pilot to a national programme that has already helped to save lives’.

The campaign, which is continuing, involves posting self-test kits to the homes of people in the target age range. Recipients are asked to take the test and send it back to the hospital for analysis, and people whose results showed an abnormality are contacted so that further tests can be carried out. The approach, which also included activity with local radio to raise awareness of bowel cancer, has proved hugely successful, with a 73 per cent response rate in its first year.

Other award winners included Knowsley Health and Social Care NHS Trust, which was presented with the ’Award of Excellence’, and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust which won the ’Best Internal Communications’ award.

This year’s conference explored the theme of ’reputation or obliteration’ through presentations, discussions and seminars with industry leaders. Speakers included David Blunkett, MP, and representatives from The Department of Health and Unison.

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