Review for Fittleworth by Noel

Fittleworth have a range of stoma products which suit me well and telephone staff who are helpful and friendly in the main. However, I have constant problems with delivery, my six most recent orders have all been short of items ordered. Only part of this is due to Fittleworth. The process of raising an order with the supplier, who then communicates with the GP, who raises a prescription which may not match the order (the cause of most of my problems), which is all that Fittleworth are allowed to despatch, is not fit for purpose, particularly when each month's order can vary slightly. The problem that is entirely due to Fittleworth is that their online ordering system is not really integrated into their actual ordering process. So after an online order is raised, someone transcribes the order into the system that actually generates the request to the GP. Occasionally, this doesn't happen at all. This is a shame, because the online system would be the most efficient, least error-prone way of generating monthly orders. Even in my case where my monthly orders vary, mainly due to pack sizes, I can call up a previous order and reorder the same products, maybe with an amendment of quantity, knowing that the product codes are correct. In combination with other tools like the Electronic Prescribing Service, this could be an exemplary system. However, although I've been nagging Fittleworth about this for more than four years now, no better integration has happened. Call handling staff acknowledge this is a problem, management staff have generally denied the issues exist or been rude and defensive in responses to complaints. If I was someone uncomfortable with navigating online systems, I would probably find Fittleworth acceptable, because I would be using telephone ordering and the call centre staff are generally excellent. Because I'm a retired IT consultant who's spent much of their career working on NHS systems, I know things could be so much better and the poor processes and Fittleworth's specific issues are wasting NHS and GP resources.