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

* Required fields

Original feedback for

Hall Green Health


Difficult to Book BSL Interpreters

Being born deaf and relying on BSL Interpreter to help with communication in health situation is very stressful. With my medication (BP / Heart and eye disease) I can’t phone my surgery without any hassle, even with help from Typetalk on Minicom machine. To avoid that I make a journey uphill to the surgery to order prescription. Although I use computer for emails I am not confident with online. Booking a BSL Interpreter at the surgery for doctor’s appointment is not straightforward as I don’t see it happening on the spot. There have been times when I have turned up for appointments and interpreter hasn't turned up or hasn't been booked - Therefore it's either cancel the visit to doctor til another time which could be three weeks wait or face the doctor thus in ten mins which is impossible to cover with all the writing between Dr and me! To be fair some staff are deaf aware and friendly but those who are not could do with short deaf awareness course, and that also it includes new doctors.