Dear Secretary of State

Dear Alan,

I write to congratulate you on your shrewd career move away from the post office, completed before your colleagues presided over the disintegration of the Post Office network. At the same time, I wanted to warn you about some worrying symptoms that might give you pause to consider whether Health Secretary is quite the place to be just now.

Who am I talking about here? As you will be well aware, the government is in the process of streamlining the delivery of many of the services once the preserve of a national network of small but local community-orientated outlets offering a wide range of products especially valued by the least mobile amongst us. Adaptable to local needs, these were not necessarily the lowest-cost options but taken "in the round" they have helped to sustain a focus for many of our small communities. Vulnerable people were known and their individual difficulties readily taken into account when national procedures or a one-size-fits-all bureaucracy might have caused distress. Such things were hard to measure but that should not have meant they were not factored in to any business rationale. I get the feeling that someone made a grand "back of a fag packet" plan and everything after that was squashed and squeezed into the resultant planning straightjacket. There were of course winners as well as losers. Supermarkets were able to win some of the business taken from these outlets. Other services were made available via government web-based products (I hope you weren't too disheartened by the appalling write-up by your [close] friends at the NAO about what poor value-for-money many government web sites have turned out to offer).

I am, of course, talking about the Post Office. I live in a small village on the Hants/Wilts border. We have a village post office (but not for much longer following public consultation - nudge nudge, wink, wink, say no more). I can't buy my TV licence there (although I can at Sainsbury or Waitrose). Last week a card from our postman fell through the door whilst we were out about a letter that needed a signature. Paul (our postman) delivers our letters and then calls at the post office next door to collect outgoing mail. He couldn't leave the letter there. Instead I had to drive the twenty-four mile round trip to the Polyclinic (oops sorry - main office) conveniently located on t'other side of Salisbury city centre where there is no free parking and the post office is surrounded by double yellow lines and an exuberant clamper. Nevertheless, I do understand your rationale - really, I do. Vulnerable and immobile people in small rural locations aren't likely to be swing voters in marginal constituencies. Young, healthy working people usually have access to the Internet and were always least likely to make use of their local post office so it is a matter of priorities. In this case the overwhelming need to secure those swing voters.

Maybe it's time you made yet another move (you've been at Health HQ quite a long time when examining your rapid progress up the greasy pole). Breaking up the branch network? Getting rid of loads of local contractors? Moving yet more government services into supermarkets? How about the Foreign Office?

p.s. glad to see your getting rid of those nasty 0844 telephone lines. By the way, do you have any other number for the NHS Pensions Stationery Order line other than 0870 1 555 455 or the NHS Pensions Help Line 0870 0 117 108? Just thought I'd ask.