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

Good Hope Hospital


91 year old aunt with broken wrist

My 91 year old aunt who lives alone fell and broke her wrist last Tuesday morning. I phoned an ambulance at mid-day after I received this news. (She had fallen about an hour before and couldn’t get to the phone.) I cancelled the ambulance at around 8.45 pm after the ambulance still hadn’t arrived and my husband was able to get to us and take my aunt and myself to A&E. Many Ambulances there were unable to leave as they could not unload patients due to the amount of people waiting to be seen. I have no complaint with the treatment my aunt received and the staff were brilliant. But when she finally had her wrist plastered we were left in reception for just a follow up appointment, even though I had told them she lived on her own. It was still chaos in there and no one enquired if I was able to take care of her going forward. She certainly could not look after herself. I couldn’t even get a taxi as “no one available in the area” and my husband had to come back out to pick us up. After getting her home at 4.00 am in the morning I had no idea what I was going to do. I rang her GP surgery who were horrified she had not been assessed at the hospital and her GP arranged an emergency assessment which resulted in carer’s coming in 4 times a day (as apparently does not qualify for respite care) This is a great help, the downside being she is left alone overnight until a nurse arrives in the morning. This runs a high risk of her falling and causing further damage to herself. My aunt thought the ambulance wouldn’t come out to her because she was too old and I had to try and explain how busy they are but to someone in that much pain it sounds hollow. And to let her go home without her being assessed is shocking. She is unsteady on her feet, can’t dress herself now or make meals and needs help going to the bathroom and that would have been obvious by just looking at her. The system here has let her down and she, and people like her deserve better.