The Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that 4.2 million people, 8% of the population of England and Wales, don’t speak English as a first language. This can pose challenges for access to the National Health Service (NHS) for non-English speaking patients and has an impact on communication and quality of care.
Expert healthcare translation is key to ensure that information generated by the NHS can be clearly understood by both patients and their relatives.
For more information on how healthcare translation can help break down barriers for NHS patients, read our blog.
In order to ensure universal access to healthcare services, it’s crucial that NHS information is available for non-English speakers, this includes, but is not restricted to:
Patient communication: appointment letters, information packs, consent forms, treatment guides and aftercare instructions
Surveys and feedback: for patients to share their experiences and help to improve NHS services
Posters and signage: public health campaigns, such as for vaccinations, disease prevention and mental health advice to reach all communities
Online content – multilingual websites and social media campaigns to provide access to essential health information
Increase understanding: accurate patient information available in the patient’s mother-tongue can help reduce any confusion or miscommunication due to an over reliance on relatives, who may not fully understand the intricacies and consequences of the healthcare treatment.
Build patient trust: having clear communication in a language they understand encourages patients to follow medical advice, use services and reduce belief in mis-information.
Support legal obligations: in line with The Equality Act 2010, the NHS should provide translation services to ensure patients fully understand their options and can give informed consent to any medical treatment.
Improve accessibility: remove language barriers to ensure equal access for all patients.
Our expert mother-tongue linguists and Project Managers deliver a wide range of healthcare translation services to Clinical Commissioning Groups and NHS Trusts. They use their experience in the healthcare sector to ensure patient communications are translated accurately, enabling you to engage with and educate patients to ensure better medical outcomes.
We’re incredibly proud to help you ensure accessibility for every patient with our expert mother-tongue linguists and Project Managers who deliver a wide range of language translation services to Clinical Commissioning Groups and NHS Trusts. They use their experience in the healthcare sector to ensure patient communications are translated accurately, enabling you to engage with and educate patients. In addition, over the past year, we have been proud to prioritise our NHS projects, ensuring accurate translations are available for the people who need it most.
We are proud of our long-standing association with the Market Research Society and membership of language industry bodies, ATC (Association of Translation Companies) and ITI (Institute of Translation and Interpreting), abiding by their strict codes of conduct and demonstrating our commitment to best practice for the benefit of our clients.
All our linguists have at least 5 years of relevant specialist experience in healthcare translation.
Collectively they:
Your dedicated and experienced Project Manager will partner with you to:
Meet our expert project management team.
If you’re looking for support with NHS translation or any other language-related service, click on the link below to contact our expert team.
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