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

Handsworth Wood Medical Centre


Poor customer service

Getting an appointment is next to impossible. now they've closed the online form to request a call back. The receptionists are useless. They never give you the correct information and move extremely slowly. Despite the fact that most places have gone back to normal working, they insist on closing the surgery and you have to stand outside and try and speak through a barely open window which means if you go for a rare face to face appointment you end up being late. It's puzzling why they insist on doing this when inside is equipped to deal with patients and there is glass between the reception and and patients. They need to resolve this issue and stop using the pandemic as an excuse to treat patients poorly.