Responses

Sent: 15 July 2021 12:03
To: Freedom of Information
Subject: FOI request – language services This email originated from outside of the organisation. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognise the sender and know the content is safe. If unsure, please contact ghcit@ghc.nhs.uk
We are NHS England Clinical Entrepreneurs undertaking research on the provision of interpreting services for patients with limited English proficiency. We would be very grateful if you could help by providing the following information, under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.: 1. Please confirm your Trust’s overall spending on Translation and Interpreting Services, for each of the financial years:
a. 2018-19
b. 2019-2020
c. 2020-2021
2. If available, for the financial years specified in Question 1, please provide a breakdown of: a. Total spend on written translation b. Total spend on telephone interpreting
c. Total spend on video interpreting
d. Total spend on in-person/face to face interpreting i.e. pre-booked consultations. e. Breakdown of spending between inpatient vs outpatient services 3. If available, please provide a breakdown of the: a. Total number of in-person/face to face interpreting sessions booked break down by language, specialty, and clinical area. a. Please confirm what is the current process for clinical or administrative staff to book:
i. An in-person / face to face interpreting consultation ii. A telephone interpreting session
iii. A video interpreting session for example, via Intranet, digital / app based, phone call.
4. Do you employ your own in-house / face-face interpreters? If yes:
a. How many interpreters do you have on payroll breakdown by substantive and bank.? b. What languages do they cover? c. What is the hourly pay for in-house interpreters 5. Do you outsource interpreting services to an external provider? If yes: a. Which providers. do you currently use?
b. Are you able to provide approximate fee / interpreting session for:
i. In-person/face to face interpreting
ii. Telephone interpreting
iii. Video interpreting 6. If you outsource the provision of interpreting services to an external provider, could you please confirm: a. Whether the provider was contracted via a national framework? If so, which one? b. When does the current contract expire? c. Is there is an exclusivity clause, which would prevent the trust from piloting additional / complementary interpreting services during the duration of your contract with your existing provider?
7. From which budget within your organisation are interpreting services funded? Which staff member/role is responsible for signing off that budget? a. Which stakeholders are involved in the decision concerning contracting of interpreting services no need to provide actual names – please only provide role and/or job titles. 8. If available, could you please provide the following information for the financial years 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21: a. Anonymised list of procedures cancelled due to lack of interpreter for key stages for example Consent process., including date when procedure was due and date when it was rescheduled alternatively, if unable to adequately anonymise, would you be able to provide us with the 1. total count of procedures that had to be cancelled 2. average delay until procedure rescheduled 3. break down by specialty if possible.
b. Anonymised list of outpatient appointments cancelled due to lack of interpreter, including date when procedure was due and date when it was rescheduled alternatively, if unable to adequately anonymise, would you be able to provide us with the 1. total count of procedures that had to be cancelled 2. average delay until procedure rescheduled 3. break down by specialty if possible.
c. Total number of incidents where one of the contributing factors was language barrier d. Total number of complaints where one of the contributing factors was language barrier 9. What is your hospital’s policy on allowing multilingual clinicians or administrative staff to perform ad-hoc interpreting for patients? a. Is this 1. not officially allowed 2. allowed in exceptional circumstances 3. encouraged alternatively please attach any relevant policies and we will review these ourselves.
10. If we would like to engage in conversation with a member of staff in your organisation to discuss the innovation we propose to develop, who would be the most suitable person to approach?
The purpose of this data collection exercise is to support the planning and development of an innovative solution which aims to reduce language barriers for patients accessing NHS services.