Volunteering

About Mystery Shopping

Mystery shopping is used to monitor and assess patient experience from the service user perspective. Individuals are trained to pose as patients/relatives/visitors/carers in order to observe and evaluate their experiences of particular scenarios or situations.

Mystery shoppers record and score their experiences by completing online questionnaires. The completed questionnaires are analysed and the findings help the managers to spot areas for service improvement.

As a Mystery Shopping Volunteer, you will pose as a visitor to our hospitals. This will involve visiting a variety of outpatient clinics at pre-agreed dates and times. You will test a number of pre-scripted situations or scenarios and record your findings on a form or questionnaire

Mystery shops capture what things are supporting visitors to feel safe and supported when arriving and waiting to be seen in clinic, to identify what was done well and what could have been done better, and can spot any missed opportunities for service improvement.

Tasks and activities

As a Mystery Shopping Volunteer, you will be asked to: -

• Take part in a half-day training course to learn about mystery shopping

• Pose as a patient or visitor to our hospitals in outpatient areas (reception and waiting   rooms only)

• Attend a number of pre-planned ‘mystery shops’, testing up to two scenarios in two      clinic locations per volunteering shift

•  Follow a written script as part of a scenario or situation

•  Write about and score your findings on a form or questionnaire, which will be           collected and analysed by the Patient Experience Manager and shared with the   relevant service managers

•  Write about your findings honestly and objectively

•   Maintain confidentiality, without sharing your findings with other people outside the     hospital

•  Use your experience of visiting the different clinics to suggest improvements to the     clinic environment

•  Provide feed back on your experiences of mystery shopping in the trust with the patient experience team and other mystery shoppers at meetings of the Patient Experience Group (PEG) (twice yearly).
Members of the PEG are also occasionally invited to support with other optional tasks, on an ad hoc basis, such as reviewing patient information or other written materials.

•  To provide your monthly availability for mystery shopping by email to the patient     experience team when prompted to facilitate timely scheduling

Skills & abilities

Must be over 18 years of age