NHS: Interpreters
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which interpreting agencies are contracted to provide services to the NHS; and what the cost to the public purse of those contracts is.
Answered by Karin Smyth
The Department does not hold the requested information centrally. Integrated care boards are responsible for arranging National Health Service healthcare services to meet the needs of their respective populations, which includes translation services.
The Department has no plans to estimate the average additional time taken during appointments for translation and interpretation.
The Department also has no plans to collect information on the proportion and cost of letters posted by the NHS in each language over the last five years, for which interpreting agencies are contracted to provide services to the NHS, the cost of such contracts, or how many test results have been translated into languages other than English for each of the last five years.
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