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

Woodland Road Surgery


Trapped in a circle

My GP Surgery offers 'Open Surgery' every morning, which is great, if you are in pain/suffering and need same day help. Where is doesn't work, is the fact it is very difficult to book an appointment for something that might be okay to be seen in a few days. It is difficult to get an appointment quite often, but then they can't open their books for appointments more than (I think it is) 10 days in advance so you are trapped in this circle of not being able to book, so you end up having to go to the open surgery. There are times when open surgery is overwhelmed and then the poor receptionists are trying to triage patients which really is way above and beyond their qualifications or pay scale.