27 May 2025
Improvement framework: community language translation and interpreting services
[…] Recommendations for NHS trusts
Actions for NHS trusts
Leadership, quality and professional standards
· Ensure senior, director-level leadership and accountability for the provision of quality translation and interpreting services within the trust.
· Maintain governance oversight of translation and interpreting services under a board-level committee, ideally the quality committee.
· Ensure there is a policy in place for translation and interpreting services and a set of clear protocols or standard operating procedures (SOPs).
· Apply service improvement methods to develop and strengthen services, using feedback mechanisms for patients and staff to help drive meaningful improvements.
· When procuring for a new translation service provider, ensure qualification and training standards are defined and the interpreters are registered (for example, with professional bodies such as the National Register of Public Service Interpreters). Build quality metrics that can be regularly monitored into contracts.
· For large trusts with significant language needs across the catchment area, the trust involved may want to consider establishing an in-house interpreting service. The case study outlined below provides an example of a trust where volunteer and bank interpreters were used to bridge the language gap successfully.
Access and barriers to services
· Make sure that any new procurement of translation and interpreting services is based on the needs of the population the trust serves and focuses on quality as well as cost.
· Develop and support trust staff so that they understand patients’ rights to interpreting support and local procedures for accessing them.
· Review and update referral templates for use by primary care to ensure they include the language needs of the patient.
· Review and develop local methods for accessing interpreting services, including appropriate balance between phone and face-to-face interpreting.
Equity, cultural sensitivity and rights
· Establish clear escalation pathways within services to address and resolve incidents of discrimination, making sure language rights are included and accountability is in place at a local level.
· Actively involve patients and communities in coproducing and improving interpreting services and other equity-focused measures, ensuring cultural sensitivity and inclusivity.
Digital opportunities and challenges
· Ensure patients’ language needs, preferences about the gender of interpreters, and other communication preferences are accurately recorded in patient records.
· Note the risks and liability issues over the use of AI interpreting tools and take account of planned policy briefings from NHS England or the Department of Health and Social Care on the use of these tools in clinical settings. Ensure any use of AI tools for interpreting only operate in the context of clearly defined trust policy and risk assessment.
Safety, confidentiality and consent
· Develop translated consent forms at the local level to ensure patients with limited English proficiency fully understand and can participate in the consent process. To maintain consistency and quality, local consent forms should adhere to national standards.
· Align delivery with the National patient safety healthcare inequalities reduction framework, which sets out 5 principles to reduce patient safety healthcare inequalities across the NHS. […]
