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

Bath Row Medical Practice, Attwood Green Health Centre


Nearly impossible to make appointments

It's incredibly difficult to get through on the phone to request an appointment. The phone line goes from being closed to a statement about the queue being full, goodbye, and it automatically hangs up on you, in seconds at opening time. You end up dialing multiple times to even get in the queue to be on hold to speak to a receptionist, which is very very frustrating. They clearly need a phone system that offers much more capacity for callers. I've also experienced the system automatically hanging up on me if I've been in the queue for more than 15 minutes without speaking to someone! Its no better if you go and queue in person before the surgery opens, often they run out of appointments to give people at the back of the queue, and just tell you to come back another day to try again. The online appointment system used to work well, but they are switching systems so it's been down for weeks, making the only option to get an appointment fighting to get in the queue on the phone! Once you get an appointment and attend, the practice is very quiet, which clearly shows they are not able to offer enough appointments to meet demand. They used to offer telephone consultations with a Dr, so if you couldn't get an appointment you'd been assessed on the phone, but the receptionists don't offer you this option anymore. I rang recently to ask for a telephone appointment and was told to ring 111 or go to a walk in centre. Very unhelpful and offered no continuity of care. Given how hard it is to make an appointment, you'd think the Drs would friendlier, but their approaches massively vary. Some seem to go out of their way to help, whilst others could not be less helpful. Having fought to even get an appointment, it's frustrating to not receive good treatment. The reception staff on the desk are very helpful if given a chance to be, but sadly often have to bear the brunt of people's frustrations with the flawed appointment system. This practice used to operate a drop in system for appointments, which I miss greatly.