Translation services

INTRAN is a multi-agency interpreting and translation partnership and it is based in the East of England.

Through INTRAN The Queen Elizabeth Hospital have access to a wide range of interpreting, translation, and other communication support services that we procure on their behalf and manage. This includes the very innovative video interpreting service.

We had a meeting with INTRAN who then showed us the services available.

And it was something that I got quite excited about and sort of helped introduce into the trust.

So the digital interpretation via the video services work by an iPad that sits on a rolling stand.

And the iPad has an app on it and that will determine, what language is requested, and then we have a face to face interpreter that will come on and interpret for the patient and the clinical staff member.

So we try and use face to face as our preferred method of translation. But the trouble is, it’s not always a real time thing. And in critical care, we have to make some quite rapid decisions.

So the video interpretation comes in really handy because it’s very readily available. It’s case of bringing it to the bedside and being able to log in and, you’re away. It’s time friendly. It’s instant. Really quite reassuring because it’s very different to having that audio communication.

So you can see gestures grimacing, you know, if it gives the interpreter a chance to have a visual aid of how the patient’s doing, and the patient actually putting a face to who they’re talking to. We often have patients whose first language isn’t English. Or maybe family members who need interpreting.

So we use the services regularly, it’s been brilliant. It’s been really helpful for us. It’s meant that we can run our therapy sessions, really smoothly. We can have really good, coherent conversations with family members. We can get plans together.

So, the help of a system of interpretation made our life much easier in the last few years. We use it in different contexts. Not just with foreign languages, but also things like the sign languages. The ability for me and my colleague to communicate with the larger number of patients in a much more effective way, really.

As head of legal services, part of my role is to obviously try and keep patients safe. Part of that is ensuring effective communication. We have made some real steps forward in providing services for our non-English speaking patients over the last 12 to 18 months, in particular.

And I think it’s fair to say that we wouldn’t have been able to do that without INTRAN’s help. They’ve provided us with solutions to problems when we’ve been looking at, bringing things in and rolling them out across the trust. And they’re also there as a daily contact if we need them.

Either their help or support or just their advice. INTRAN, really you can tell are interested in helping patients and staff members achieve the results that we need, which is to be able to communicate, which then in turn improves the patient experience.

And that’s something that we really strive to achieve here at this hospital.

We feel like they care just as much as we want to care about our patients.