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

Stratford House Surgery


A remarkably poor provider of patient care.

Over the last 6 months, I have played a more active role in my father health care. G contacting the surgery by phone is nigh on impossible. I have been calling the surgery every day for the last 5 business days to get an appointment for my Dad. The lien is either diverted to their out of hours service (even when it is within their opening hours) or you have a fruitless and indefinite wait. Yesterday I spent a total of 53 mins waiting for someone to pick up the phone. My Dad needed a blood test and we had to wait over two weeks for the bookings list to open up just to get a test!! We then obviously had to wait for our allocated appointment time. The front line team do their best but it's a poor service that clearly has no imperative to improve.