"Sent a letter in response to an email"

I have for many years been frustrated by the health services which my chronically ill partner has received.  He has spent months waiting for appointments which he then can't attend because of poor health.  In my view his condition has never been thoroughly investigated either by individual doctors or more collectively in a way that I would consider to be at all 'patient centred' as opposed to 'specialty centred'. Consequently he has never received any ongoing effective treatment and had lived with high levels of pain for many years.

I am not sure why I have gone along with seeing someone I love suffer so much and loose so many aspects of his life. Possibly I wasn't sure what steps I could take.  But our latest experience (waiting over a year from referral and still no diagnostic appointment in sight) was so exasperating that I decided to take the radical step of emailing NHS Dumfries & Galloway to express my frustration and ask some questions.

I waited 8 DAYS for some acknowledgement of my email before I rang to ask when I would have a response.  At first I was told my email hadn't arrived, then I received a phone call and was told an acknowledgement letter...yes a LETTER...had been posted to me but may have been delayed in the Christmas post as I hadn't yet received it!

I regret that I almost lost my temper with the woman who called me as I was incredulous that an email acknowledgement hadn't been sent to me; I could have received that in minutes.  

It was explained to me that it is 'standard procedure' to send a letter and not an email.  A standard procedure, a standard procedure - I still can't believe it even as I write this. an issue I get more annoyed the more I think about it.  It only compounds one of the issues in my original  email which was about the slowness of information moving between Edinburgh and Dumfries.

Of course some people won't want an email but I had indicated my acceptance of the medium by sending an email to them in the first place as it is my preferred method of communication.