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

Hillcrest Surgery - Twickenham Road


Unable to contact or get an appt

I have 3 minor issues to raise now but every time I ring up, it’s engaged, I’m put in a queue and then the call terminates after 20 minutes of being in the queue, so I have to ring again. Then when I get through, there’s no appointments left. This has been going on for 6 months. I can’t phone every day as I start work at 8am so can only ring on a day off as not allowed to use or have my phone on me at work. As phone appointments are either sometime in the morning or sometime in the afternoon I can only have an appointment on a day off, but no guarantee I can actually get an appointment on that day. I tried econsult but the practice isn’t recognised, can’t send a message through the NHS app (says it’s through Accurx Limited), can't send a message through the Airmid UK app, can’t find an email address. Considering writing a letter as this is ridiculous. In an emergency I use 111 as they’ll give me an appointment with the out of hours GP but they won’t deal with ongoing conditions, which need to be dealt with by the GP but I can’t get an appointment. What am I supposed to do? This practice does not care about patients who need to work.