"The doctor was not told I was waiting"

Hi Saimab,

Your story made me feel very sad and concerned. I am sorry this happened to you. I will do my very best to ensure you receive a response from someone at our Reach Out Recovery service in Birmingham.

Thank you for your courage in writing about your experience with us, it will inspire others to share their experience about our services and inform how we make our services better for people who use them.

If you would like to discuss this further with me you can call me on 07500 833609 or mail me at mark.pryke@cgl.org.uk;

I really hope you have a good weekend.

Thanks again,

Mark Pryke.

Hi Saimab

My name is Lydia and I am CGL Birmingham’s Service User Involvement Lead. I’m responsible for seeking people’s feedback and ensuring they feel supported and listened to when they tell us about a bad experience of using our service.

I am so sorry to hear about your experience. I was saddened to read your feedback and that you felt let down.

I have looked into what went wrong on the day you came to your appointment and I have identified some steps that we could have taken, to prevent what happened.

We take the feedback we receive from people who use our service very seriously. I’m really keen to speak to you, so that I can explain exactly what happened on the day of your visit and tell you about the changes we are proposing to make, to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen again to you or anyone else. I’d be really interested to hear what you think about these changes and check that you feel they will work.

I’ve tried contacting you on your mobile number, but couldn’t get through, so I have left you a message with my contact details. I’d really appreciate you making contact with me as soon as you can. If you would prefer to meet with me in person, instead of talking over the phone, then please let me know and we can arrange a convenient time for us to meet.

If you haven't got access to a phone right now and are unable to call me, then please drop into CGL East, 111 Church Lane, Stechford, Birmingham, B33 9EJ. I'm not based at this venue all of the time so may not be there when you drop in. However, if I'm not there, you can leave a message with reception letting me know the best way to contact you and I'll endeavour to respond. CGL East's opening times are:

Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri: 9am - 5pm

Wed: 9am - 6:30pm

Again, please accept our apologies and I hope to hear from you soon.

Dear Saimab

I hope you are well?

I am sorry that I have not been in touch sooner. I just wanted to let you know about the progress we’ve made towards addressing the feedback you left.

I’ve informed our Senior Management Team about the experience you had on the day that you left your feedback. They were really sorry to hear about this.

They’ve agreed we need to make a change and have asked me to create a team of staff, who have a range of different roles within our service to explore what this change should look like.

Once this has been developed and approved, it will be shared with all of the managers who are responsible for the different teams who contribute to running our clinics, so that they can ensure that our new way of working is adopted by all.

Our new way of working will also be displayed in our reception areas, so that the people who use our service can learn about this and will know what to expect when they attend clinic appointments.

We hope to have completed this work by the end of November.

I’m sorry if it feels like this is change is taking some time to bring about.

As we are a large service with multiple venues, we have to plan change carefully, so we can be as confident as possible that it ensures all of the people who need our support, have a fair and equal experience, regardless of what CGL venue they visit in Birmingham.

In the meantime I will keep you updated on our progress and will inform you if, for any reason, we feel like this work may take longer than we had hoped, including the reasons why.

Whilst our team are carrying out their work, I’d really like to hear your opinion about what we are planning, so that your thoughts can be included.

Please contact me on 07717715273 if you would like to hear more about our plans.

Thank you for your patience.

Kind regards

Lydia

Dear Saimab

I hope all is well with you?

I'd just like to give you an update on our progress.

The team of people/workers who were brought together to develop a different way that we can work in our clinics have completed their draft proposal.

This will be shared with Senior Managers in our next Senior Management team, which is happening within the next two weeks.

As soon as their review has taken place, I will be back in touch with an update.

Apologies again that this is taking some time, but I can assure you we are making progress.

If you're interested in hearing more information about the proposal they've come up with, please give me a call on 07717715273 and I would be happy to discuss this with you and listen to your thoughts.

Thanks for your patience.

Lydia