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

The Homeless Health Exchange


Took time to listen and understand

We support adult survivors of modern slavery, we recently helped one of our clients to register there. Our client has significant mental health problems (including multiple suicide attempts, anxiety, depression) and in constant pain due to historic injuries. The Health Exchange carried out a really thorough and comprehensive assessment of her health (it wasn't a 10-20 minute rush), immediately referred her for a scan and offered her specialist psychiatric support quickly. What we particularly noticed and appreciate is that they took time to LISTEN AND TO UNDERSTAND the nature of our clients issues and then to ACT PROMPTLY. They took her concerns and issues seriously and understood the nature of her trauma without judgment with expert care. When we, as a support service, contacted the practice with our concerns (with client's consent), they took time to hear what we had to say and responded by arranging a call and an appointment with the client.