Mystery Shopper exercise checks out for Oxleas

Recently I’ve been fortunate in being involved with the Stonewall Healthy Lives Programme, Oxleas being one of 20 NHS Trusts to be selected to take part, the aim of the programme being to improve the trust as a workplace for lesbian, gay and bisexual staff as well as improving provision for service users.

As part of the programme I was asked to perform a Mystery Shopper exercise on the Trust’s website, looking at website as if I was a potential user of Oxleas’ services as a gay person, given that someone who is gay may be reluctant to disclose their sexuality to health professionals for fear that it may influence the care or treatment they receive.

I first looked at the website back in the summer and found little in the way of reassurance, if I had been looking to use Oxleas I would have struggled to find any information that would have made me feel safe. I did view the videos on the site which explain what happens when someone is admitted, but no reference was made to visiting or having partners present or the rights of same sex partners.

In November I repeated the exercise – what a dramatic improvement!

Immediately on the sites home page there were links to a response by Michael Witney and Maeve Malley on a recent press story on a cure to being gay and also a link relating to World Aids Day.

To mirror the exercise in the summer I simply typed ‘gay’ into the site’s search box and this time was rewarded with a host of links, again to the above article and World Aids Day but also to the Stonewall Healthy Lives programme, Metro Centre and PACE, two local organizations working with LGBT groups; an article on trans youth and the Trust’s section of discrimination barriers. The link to the LGBT blog was also very clear and very visible on several pages.

For comparison I also looked at the website of another Trust, and with the exception of information and links to some local services, I found the presentation quite dull and less inviting after looking at our site, so well done to our communications team!

I think that it’s important sometimes to try and look at ourselves the way that others see us, I’d be interested to hear other people’s views and if people have ‘Mystery Shopped’ other aspects of Oxleas’ services.