Translations soar for Polish patients

Published on Saturday 19 June 2010 11:17

NEARLY 13,000 hours were spent translating health information into Polish in Edinburgh last year as the region's bill for interpreters soared.

Interpreters for the largest minority group in the city accounted for a large proportion of the 700,000 spent by health chiefs on translation services.

That figure rose from 500,000 in 2008, and NHS Lothian said the increase was down to more non-English speakers using health services.

Pat Dawson, associate nurse director for NHS Lothian, said: "NHS Lothian provides healthcare to a diverse and increasing population of people living in Lothian. We have a duty to ensure each patient understands exactly what is happening during every step of the way.

"The costs of translation and interpretation have grown in line with increases in the size of our population, and the rising birthrate in Lothian."

Of the 26,100 hours spent on face-to-face translating, 12,940 were for Polish.

Chinese was the second most popular, with 4,000 hours, while 2,000 were spent communicating with Arabic-speakers. Turkish, Bengali, Portuguese and Russian translators were also well used, while just one hour went for Somali and Tamil.

Sign language experts for deaf people accounted for 1,300 hours' work.

Health board sources said the spend on translation actually proved valuable, as it encouraged more people from ethnic minorities to confidently seek help – money would be saved in the long term if patients were admitted for care in a less-advanced state.

Councillor Lesley Hinds, Labour's health spokeswoman, said: "The number does seem high, and if as many Polish people are going back as we are told I can't understand why it would have gone up.

"But it is important that we have good translation services. It's not the case that people can't speak a word of English and need everything interpreted for them.

"When you are getting something like a diagnosis it is very important to be 100 per cent clear, so even someone with fairly good English might need that little bit of help to make sure it is understood."

The figures, obtained by the Evening News under the Freedom of Information Act, showed an additional 1,000 hours were used creating literature in Polish, and 200 hours in Spanish.

TALK ISN'T CHEAP

Number of hours dedicated to each language:

&#149 Polish: 12,940

&#149 Chinese: 3,914

&#149 Arabic: 1,945

&#149 Urdu/Punjabi: 1,431

&#149 Sign: 1,363

&#149 Turkish: 845

&#149 Bengali: 571

&#149 Portuguese: 523

&#149 Russian: 340

&#149 Romanian: 304