After a successful shopper pilot exercise in late 2016, AMTRA has announced that it will run a new mystery shopper programme in 2018.

Stephen Dawson, AMTRA’s secretary general, said: “AMTRA’s mystery shopper pilot showed customer interaction key to the VPS medicines system; gaining the right level of technical and personal detail is crucial to SQP performance and delivery.

“We have learned from the pilot and have redesigned the mystery shopper exercise. For this year’s mystery shopper exercise, the team of shoppers will actually be making a test purchase of medicines as part of the sales presentation and advice. This will give us the full picture, the combination of good advice, with the right product promoted and purchased.”

Mr Dawson said that the mystery shopping exercise will be conduced during 2018, in two phases. One phase will assess companion and equine SQPs, the other phase will assess farm SQPs.

Figures released by AMTRA following the pilot mystery shopper programme, indicates that SQP interaction with customers was vital and SQP premises are performing well, although there was room for improvement if the SQP is to deliver the most suitable treatment with the right advice, every time.

AMTRA launched its mystery shopper programme to help tailor future training requirements and identify any shortcomings in performance at the point-of-sale.

Mr Dawson added: “There are almost 7,000 SQPs working across the equine, farming and companion animal sectors, and all SQP premises are subject to inspection.”

In the pilot, 60 SQP premises were visited, 30 farm or country store premises, 10 equine-related businesses, 10 pet stores and 10 veterinary practices.