PQ: 25 February 2025

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2025-02-03.28407.h

NHS 111: Translation Services

Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 25 February 2025.

Rupert Lowe Reform UK, Great Yarmouth

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much was spent on (a) translation and (b) interpretation on the 111 NHS contact number in 2024.

Karin Smyth Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The NHS 111 service is nationally specified and locally commissioned. Each NHS 111 provider is responsible for procuring language interpretation services. The only centrally procured interpreting service is British Sign Language, as this is a separate video relay channel not linked to the NHS 111 voice number

NHS England does not hold information relating to the cost of locally procured language interpretation services.

PQ: 24 February 2025

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2025-02-03.28409.h

NHS: Translation Services

Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 24 February 2025.

Rupert Lowe Reform UK, Great Yarmouth

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much his Department spent on (a) external tenders and (b) contracts for (i) translation and (ii) interpretation services in the NHS in 2024.

Karin Smyth Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department’s expenditure with external suppliers of translation or interpretation services in the 2024 calendar year was £16,833. This was mainly for providing accessible, easy to understand versions of technical and legal documents for patients and the public.

DWP spends £8 million a year on interpreters for people on benefits

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/cost-of-living/dwp-spends-8-million-year-31049382

21 February 2025

DWP spends £8 million a year on interpreters for people on benefits

Taxpayers have spent £8 MILLION a year on interpreters for benefits claimants, figures show. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is paying out an average of £250 per call to give advice, with some languages having fewer than a million speakers.

The DWP is spending £8m a year on translators for nearly 90 different languages, some of which are spoken by fewer than a million people worldwide. There have been 92,240 video, phone or face-to-face sessions to date under the three-year, £23.1 million contract for translation services for 88 different languages provided to the DWP, according to the data.

The DWP said the £23.1 million included video remote services and British Sign Language, where it was required in 2,600 calls. Neil O’Brien, a former health minister who obtained the information through parliamentary questions, said it raised the issue of why the UK was providing benefits to people who could not speak English. […]