Royal Mail is looking for thousands of temporary workers to join the team across the UK in the run-up to Christmas.
With the nights drawing in, the air getting chillier by the day, and the festive season now practically within our sights, Royal Mail is gearing up for what is always its “busiest period” of the year by recruiting an army of 16,000 temporary workers all across the country to help its 110,000 already-employed posties sort the mail.
Although hiring for Christmas is , of course, what the postal service mainly has its sights set on, that’s not the only seasonal event it’s looking for extra help with, as many of the new temporary staff will begin work at the end of this month so they can cover Black Friday and Cyber Monday too.
The postal service says the festive season brings with it around double the normal volumes of parcels and stamped letters that need to be processed.
Royal Mail is hiring 16,000 temporary workers across UK in run-up to Christmas / Credit: Royal Mail
On top of this, the company says it’s also expecting an increased number of online shopping parcels to process this year too – which is why it’s hoping to welcome the tens of thousands of new staff on short-term roles before Christmas arrives.
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The temporary positions will be located in 37 mail centres across the UK, with a variety of different roles and shifts available.
A whopping 176,500 sqm of extra temporary space – which is apparently equivalent to 16 football pitches – has been created across five parcel sort centres ready for the season, Royal Mail has confirmed, while the company’s two new automated ‘Super Hubs’, one of which is based here in the North West in Warrington, and the other in Daventry, will also be hiring hundreds of additional staff.
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Up to 600 new temporary staff will join the ‘Super Hub’ teams, as Royal Mail expects two million parcels per day to be processed across both sites.
Contracts for the 16,000 temporary roles run from late October through to early January 2024, with the period for the additional temporary work including Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but will be at its peak in December.
“We are pulling out all the stops to deliver Christmas,” Royal Mail’s Chief Operating Officer, Grant McPherson, said as the seasonal recruitment drive was launched.
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“It’s our busiest time of the year and we know how important it is to deliver on time for our customers, so by planning ahead, hiring more people, vans and trucks, we are well-prepared to handle the increase in festive mail and parcels and deliver the high standards of service our customers expect from Royal Mail.”
Find out more about all the temporary seasonal roles available on the Royal Mail website here.
Featured Image – Royal Mail
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NHS to start screening patient health records in a bid to catch one of the most ‘lethal’ cancers
Emily Sergeant
Hundreds of GP practices will begin combing patient records to offer urgent tests to those most at risk of one of the deadliest cancers.
It’s all in a bid to catch pancreatic cancer sooner rather than later.
Pancreatic cancer is the fifth most-common cause of cancer deaths in the UK each year, with only 7% of people living for five years or more after diagnosis.
Most people with pancreatic cancer only recognise symptoms when their disease is at a late stage, so this is why the NHS wants to reach out to people as early as possible through its new screening initiative so they can get the best treatment available to them.
GP teams are set to start scouring online patients records to identify people over 60 who have the key early warning signs of pancreatic cancer – including being recently diagnosed with diabetes and sudden weight loss, as it’s said that around half of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer have been diagnosed with diabetes recently.
The symptoms of pancreatic cancer are usually not noticed until it’s at an advanced stage, so we need to find new ways to pick it up.
We’re working to seek people out who might be unwell without any symptoms, so we can provide people with the most effective treatment. https://t.co/6rlFVGN6UW
Even if a patient’s weight is not recorded, GP teams will reach out to patients to check they have not ‘unexpectedly slimmed down’ and offer them tests if they have new onset diabetes.
More than 300 GP practices across England will begin using the initiative – with dozens rolling it out now, and the rest due to be up and running in the autumn.
While GP teams already know the signs to look for, this new screening scheme provides almost £2 million in targeted funding to help practices reach out to those most at-risk and give patients the best chance of being diagnosed earlier.
NHS is starting to screen patient health records in a bid to catch one of the most ‘lethal’ cancers / Credit: RawPixel
When the practices taking part in the three-year pilot find the signs and symptoms they’re looking for, they will then contact patients and send them for urgent blood tests and CT scans to rule out cancer.
“Pancreatic cancer is responsible for so many deaths, because patients don’t usually notice symptoms until the cancer is at an advanced stage, which is why we need to find new ways to pick it up,” commented Professor Peter Johnson, who is the NHS’s National Clinical Director for Cancer.
Health Minister, Karin Smyth, added: “As someone who has faced cancer personally, I know all too well the fear that comes with a diagnosis and the precious value of catching it early.
“This targeted approach to identify people at risk of one of the most lethal cancers could give more people a fighting chance and spare the heartbreak of countless families.”
Featured Image – RDNE (via Pexels)
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Chester Zoo named one of England’s most popular tourist attractions with 1.9m visitors
Emily Sergeant
Congratulations are in order, yet again, for Chester Zoo… as this time its been one of England’s most popular attractions.
Merely months after being named the UK’s best zoo for the second year running, thanks to receiving more than 11,000 ‘excellent’ reviews from TripAdvisor, Chester Zoo has now got itself another prestigious title, as a major VisitEngland (VE) report has ranked it the third most-visited ‘paid for’ attraction in England – and the most visited outside of London.
The national tourist board for England gathered information from a total of 1,373 attractions across the country, and ranked the UK’s biggest charity zoo as the third overall in terms of popularity, with a whopping 1.9 million visitors in 2024 alone.
The Tower of London took top spot with 2.9 million visitors, while the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew was second place with 2.3 million visitors.
When it comes to free attractions, on the other hand, it wad the British Museum that claimed the top spot with 6.5 million visitors, while the Natural History Museum (5.9 million visitors) took second place, and the Tate Modern (4.6 million visitors) got third.
So as you can see, the south and London in particular is a pretty dominating force in England’s tourism industry – which is why it’s even more impressive to see Chester Zoo ranked so highly.
The new VE title also comes after the zoo was recently given £4 million of lottery funding to help ‘transform’ the local environment and restore wildlife habitats across the Cheshire and wider North West region.
Not only that, but if course follows Chester Zoo’s unveiling of its new immersive experience named Heart of Africa, which is the the largest zoo habitat ever created in the UK and is home to 57 iconic African species.
Chester Zoo has been named one of England’s most popular tourist attractions with 1.9m visitors / Credit: Chester Zoo
“As a major international wildlife charity, everything we do is focused on supporting global conservation,” commented Chester Zoo’s Commercial Director, Dom Strange.
“Whether it’s caring for highly-threatened animals and plants, making scientific discoveries, influencing Government environmental policies, impacting the National Curriculum to better connect young people with nature, or our conservation efforts in around 20 countries, we’re fully committed to protecting endangered species for the future.
“But none of this would be possible without our visitors.
“Every person who comes to the zoo for a fun and inspiring day out is helping to fund our vital work, so we want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has supported us and helped us to rank so highly in VisitEngland’s latest report.”
Emily Sergeant -
24th October 2023 
