Alliance Health Group - Birmingham

Kate D.

Shortage of consultants available and was offered appointments an hour away. Subsequently waited 2 weeks to see a local one. Appointment was changed at last minute by Hospital but that was not a problem and the visit and consultation was very good. I was called by Alliance the following day to see how I got on and the lady who called me was quite good and helpful. The experience was not as slick as I hoped but this is my first need to use it. Vitality don't tell you any of this when you sign up with them of course.

Peter I.

Great service but I find seems like they have an issue with communication between staff and different departments of the hospitals. If I'm booking a new appointment or treatment or anything else then I, personally, I need to let the central office know about it, because the doctors or the nurses or whoever I dealt with does not communicate that to their central office to update my file. If you don't update them about what you did, they will tell you later that they had no idea of this and that, or maybe that you were not covered for this and that by the insurance.
That's really annoying. I hope they develop a more centralised system soon.

Yvette D.

Excellent service so far. Particularly appreciated the immediate follow-up call received the next day. Seemed to understand the issue fully and confirmed would get the full diagnoses directly from the consultant. Hope this level of excellent customer service continues as it seems rare these days.

Gareth C.

Absolutely shocking. I've been trying to reclaim £25 for nearly three months they never ring back, there is never a manager to speak to and every time I call I have to start from the beginning. Truly incompetent. Google made me give them a star. [edited 21/04/2017] I was acting for a client of mine I wasn't the patient, the matter is now resolved and the money was returned this week. All very frustrating and it took ages.

Christopher B.

Extremely poor service on the phone, with very long wait times. The service is totally manual and they send out emails with all sorts of errors.

They have had multiple issues with billing me, resulting in £180 being wrongly taken from my account for 3 months. Alliance didn't refund the charge until I chased via multiple calls, each with ~20 min wait time.

They're a totally useless company that really needs to be competed out of the market.

Steli S.

I was referred to Alliance Group for an appointment with a consultant for a hand consultation ( suspected fracture). Four days after my call and various advisors they did identify a consultant that can see me during the week of my call.
This is in London where there is always someone on call or working.
I was told that it can take up to 10 days for someone to secure a booking with a consultant as they are not an emergency service. Fascinating SLAs.

They initially offered me an appointment 17 days after my call ( with the consultant I have suggested) or one the day after, but had unmovable plans and the location was so inconvenient, I couldn't make it work.

We finally agreed to see a consultant in a different part of the city and was meant to receive a call back if a closer hospital had availability ( they left a voicemail for the Paddington one) . Their calls haven't been returned as apparently secretaries work part time, and it is acceptable to return a call after 24 hours!
In health care.

In my experience Vitality is a substandard insurance that associates with companies that do not live up to an acceptable standard of service and there is always a disclaimer somewhere that restricts the terms of their offers. Avoid if you can.

Long story short I now have to go on an active holiday with a suspected fracture.

Quite disappointing. This wasn't something I have experienced with any of my previous insurers over the past 13 years.

Passepartout H. P.

Overall a bad service. Incredibly long waiting times on the phone, staff who is not necessarily competent to deal with your health queries and is often obstructive. Way too much bureaucracy and paperwork. I am a Vitality member, I don't understand why I have to go through another channel and not Vitality directly. Nothing simple in the hope you give up and go to the NHS.

Tarek A.

I'm insured by Vitality and Alliance Health Group was responsible for finding a consultant booking for me.
So I got a call from someone (I won't specify the name, it's enough to say that he was extremely irresponsible) who introduced his role very politely and explained the next steps for me. When it came to selecting a consultant (by him) he said that ALL these consultants are doing video consultations ONLY, I asked if he can find me a face to face appointment anywhere in London but his answer was clear; due to covid19 only video consultations are now seem to be the only option except if I want to wait for a week or two. I stressed on the importance of my case and that it's very desired that the consultant checks on my ear otherwise there's no point! He again confirmed that if I want to choose a different consultant that's doing F2F appointments I need to pay 40% of the treatment costs. Given the above I went for the first choice and he put me on hold for 5 mins.
Luckily! The call was disconnected by mistake and the guy didn't bother calling me again, he just texted me a number to call back so I wait for 15 mins before getting another health advisor named Jake, who was extremely helpful. Jake looked at my case and then said: Why video consultations? we have a consultant available who can do a face to face consultation on the next day!! Thanks Jake you saved my day and probably my hearing by getting me a useful help asap!

Now why did I review 3 stars although I got a very quick face to face appointment at the end? Simply because if it wasn't for luck that I had my call disconnected with the first advisor, I would have had delays in my treatment which may cause a hearing loss (Which is one of the potential outcomes of delayed treatment for my case). Come on guys give an appropriate trainings to your advisors to be more responsible as they are dealing with extremely sensitive health & life issues!!

Thanks,
Tarek