Right to Respond

As part of our commitment to providing an honest and transparent view of health and social care services, Healthwatch Birmingham encourages providers to respond to comments the public have left.

Alongside ensuring providers can have a fair say in discussions about their services, replying to reviews demonstrates evidence of responding to patient feedback for the CQC, who regularly monitor our Feedback Centre. It is also an effective way to recruit service users for any wider engagement work at your organisation.

Guidelines for provider responses:

  • Keep language appropriate and civil
  • Remain professional and treat people’s comments fairly
  • Engage with the content of the review by addressing specific points and avoid cut and pasting a standard response
  • Don’t disclose the service user’s personal details or any potentially identifying information
  • Where appropriate leave organisational contact details e.g PALS or patient engagement teams for people to get further information

Remember: your response will be seen by everyone who uses the Feedback Centre, not just the original reviewer. All responses are moderated in accordance with our moderation policy.

For full terms and conditions, including a guide to how right to reply works for service providers download this guide.

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Original feedback for

Barnt Green Surgery


Poor Service

Poor, distressing, unprofessional, uncaring inhuman. Impossible at times to get reception staff to arrange urgent discussion directly with GP. Even though they had issued a DS 1500 to confirm patient was terminal, he/we did not get appropriate support from this GP surgery when needed. We were desperate as we were struggling to feed and hydrate and medicate for weeks before. He deteriorated so much we could no longer manage his care. (District nurses were in attendance to monitor his diabetes/insulin) They eventually agreed to send a senior nurse practitioner and assessor from Social care which we were extremely grateful for. (The GP that arranged this told us the family needed to understand that our loved one can last years with this type of cancer) Which totally contradicted the palliative care report written by Queen Elizabeth Hospital and that the surgery had issued the DS1500!!! But we were just thankful that they were sending senior staff to assess and hopefully help us. The nurse practitioner came and witnessed how poor the patient was and she and social care worker (both of whom were amazing, arranged equipment, care workers 4 times a day, request for liquid medication as he could not swallow his tablets. Unfortunately we realised we could not give him the level of care he needed as he was so weak through inability to consume food drink and medication. We then requested he be admitted to hospice which was agreed, it seemed, after the GPs had feedback from the nursing practitioner. Sadly our loved one died less than 3 weeks later.