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.

Your reply

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Original feedback for

Dr Chitre


GPs are not as great as they used to be

The GP services have become poor over the years. They are not as great as they used to be. Everything is limited – you can only have a ten minute appointment, only one issues per appointment, and it takes long to book appointments. The time limit on appointments makes you fearful to disclose other illnesses because you can only share one. This is the same in hospitals. Sometimes, it can make you feel worse – you are not heard or listened to. The personal relationship that used to be there between the Doctor and patient is no longer there. Sometimes you just need to talk to someone because it is a mental issue rather than a physical issue. Now they have cut out a lot of prescriptions such as medication for eczema. That is not very fair, especially in a deprived area. It seems everyone is being treated the same. The patient- doctor relationship is not there. People have lost faith in GPs. Nowadays, I wait until my GP is closed and use out of hours and I always get an appointment. The problem is that they are just moving the burden to other services. GPs are the biggest link between families and the health. If you cannot trust the GP, how can you trust the hospital.