Friends Shop - eCommerce Hospital Convenience Shop

In November 2020, we teamed up with local charity Friends of Milton Keynes Hospital and Community and turned a traditional hospital ward trolley service into a Deliveroo-style ward delivery service.

Friends of Milton Keynes Hospital and Community (MK Friends) is an independent charity based at Milton Keynes University Hospital. Established over 40 years ago, the charity works in the heart of the hospital and local Milton Keynes communities.

The MK Friends Shop, a convenience shop located in the hospital, and the trolley service that contains newspapers and essentials 364 days per year to hospital wards, has been a lifeline to patients, families and staff who rely on the service run by volunteers.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the charity has been unable to open both the shop and run the ward service due to hospital restrictions. With funds dwindling and fundraising drying up, Next Trick came up with an online ordering service, with delivery to the Ward Manager.

Teaming up with Community Advocate, and Chair of MK Friends, Clare Hill, we worked on developing a pilot launched which successfully launched on 7 December 2020.

Visitors place their order (minimum of £3 plus 50p delivery fee) on the Friends Shop, selecting their hospital ward at checkout.

A confirmation SMS and Email get sent to the patient or the person buying on behalf of the patient.

The shop team receive and process the order using the Next Trick label system. Order's packaged for delivery to the hospital wards.

Orders received before 11am are delivered the same day between 1-3pm to the Ward Manager.

We've developed the Friends Shop using Shopify, taking advantage of the flexible features and fast setup time.

• Easy to navigate menus, product pages and checkout in our mobile-first design
• Custom development to support the local delivery to select Wards during the pilot
• Choice of payment methods, including Credit/Debit Card, PayPal and Apple/Android Pay