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

Iridium Medical Practice


Complete lack of understanding or help

I see specialist clinic in Nottingham every 6-9 months, I live in Birmingham. Have been trying to set up a shared care agreement and the process of receiving prescribed medication. I should have been taking medication since I left Uni of last year in June 2017 but it took between then and April 2018 just to get registered at this GP Clinic. Since then I have been refused treatment for various reasons in the following order: - The specialist clinic should prescribe the medication, not the GP. - Following a letter from specialist clinic to the GP the excuse was the treatment isn't funded. - Most recent excuse (December 2018) they don't have the training and are unwilling to help and told me no other GP will despite this specialist clinic clearly instructing the process. I should be taking prescribed medication for atleast a year and 6 months but I haven't had any in that time because of these issues. There has been a total lack of interest in helping me. This doesn't include the difficulty to get through via the phone to arrange an appointment or the fact that its pot luck which doctor you see. Reception staff told me a few weeks ago I can't pre-arrange appointments and upon telling them why I was trying to see a specific doctor being the reason for pre-arranging the appointment I was told it wasn't an emergency and I couldn't even ring at 8am in the morning for an appointment either. I'm stuck in a situation where I should be receiving treatment but not and haven't been directed to a GP that will.