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

The Swan Medical Centre


Needs improvement

I have been at this surgery many years and despite always hanging on the phone, got a face to face appt. Now with this new AccuRx system they tell you to use for almost everything is turned to accepting no more when they obviously get too many requests which is not acceptable. You still can't get a face to face appt unless you insist at your telephone appt which is doubling the gp time dealing with a patient. They have now opened the doors at the surgery when they were locked for patients to check own temperature, hand sanitise and wait in a small queuing area. Most patients don't follow instructions so could be bringing covid into the surgery. I can understand they were fed up getting up and down to let people in and out the door but leaving as it is, is not acceptable! They are also losing the nurse practitioner now too who was really good and use too many locums. They need to sort themselves out and go back to how good they were pre covid but without the rude receptionists.