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North Bristol NHS Trust Interprets Patients' Needs

North Bristol NHS Trust

North Bristol NHS Trust has appointed thebigwordGroup to help it deliver an efficient and  patient-centric service to patients with limited English speaking skills.

The challenge

The Trust serves a population of more than half a million people and last year, its medical teams delivered more than 5,400 babies and treated nearly 318,000 outpatients.

Recognising that in a proportion of cases, English is not the patient’s first language, the Trust took the decision to review its language support provision.

As part of this review, the Trust approached thebigwordGroup with the aim of improving quality of service and patient experience, getting greater insight into when – and when not – an interpreter is required, and obtaining the most efficient and cost-effective solution.

The approach

Existing data on interpreter use was collated and analysed. thebigword identified that, in a percentage of cases, the Trust would benefit from replacing the use of Face-to-Face Interpreters with a Telephone Interpreting service.

Telephone Interpreting (TI) enables two people who speak different languages to communicate over the telephone via an interpreter who is also on the line.

Conducting a three-month pilot for the Trust, thebigwordGroup found that in specific cases, TI had advantages over face-to-face interpreting:

• interpreters could be accessed quickly and on-demand, often within 60 seconds
• patient choice was increased by the ability to request (say) an interpreter of a specific gender
• the range of available languages was greater
• there was improved value for money without compromising service standards

Implementation

To assist the Trust in the appropriate use of interpreting services, thebigwordGroup held a number of focus group sessions engaging both staff and community groups. The end result provided a number of best practice scenarios that staff could relate to on a day-to-day basis.

From these best practices, the Trust was able to develop a set of guidelines which helped staff to decide, in any given situation, whether Face-to-Face or Telephone Interpreting was most appropriate.

An information and briefing programme was put in place to ensure staff are fully informed about the options, and benefits of both services.  As part of this programme, thebigwordGroup worked with the Trust to provide information for the Trust’s Intranet, and with key stakeholders to enable them to brief their teams, and appointed ‘Interpreting Champions’ who could be approached by their colleagues for advice on interpreting on a day-to-day basis.

This combined approach has ensured that all staff are empowered to meet the needs of patients with limited English speaking skills.

The system was set up so that all information on interpreting use – both TI and Face-to-Face – is collated through use of thebigwordGroup’s language management software platform, LanguageDirector®.

Benefits

Development of the Best Practice Guidelines and education of staff in choosing the most appropriate mechanism for interpreting has resulted in a significant rise in the use of TI and a subsequent reduction in the use of Face-to-Face Interpreters.

The increased use of TI alongside Face-to-Face Interpreting has enabled the Trust to continue to deliver high-quality patient interpreting services at best value for money.

The use of LanguageDirector® to collate data on language services usage has enabled the Trust to obtain real-time management information which provides transparency in the way the services are being utilised.

The information and briefing programmes have educated the Trust’s staff on the best use of interpreting services and the cultural and personal choice factors to consider when requesting an interpreter.

Outcomes

The Trust took the decision to implement thebigwordGroup’s service before the end of the three-month pilot.  The Trust now routes all its interpreting requirements though LanguageDirector®, providing ease of use and automatic capture of detailed usage data.

Sharon Hadley, Patient Information Officer for North Bristol NHS Trust says: "thebigwordGroup partnered with the North Bristol Trust to create an environment which ensures patients and our staff are able to communicate effectively, no matter what language is spoken. Interpreting is important for our patients and we are confident that this new service will give them what they need".

thebigword becomes Lambeth Council's central provider for face-to-face and telephone interpreting

Lambeth Council

With over 270,000 residents, Lambeth is one of London’s largest inner boroughs. There are approximately 150 languages spoken in this area, including Yoruba, Portuguese and Twi, to name a few. A significant proportion of residents are non-English speakers, all of whom are entitled to services offered by Lambeth Council, such as housing and social work.

Previously council staff, were booking face-to-face interpreters from twenty different agencies, which meant there wasn’t any consistency in quality, charge rates or managing reporting information available. After learning about thebigword’s Framework Agreement for telephone interpreting, Lambeth approached thebigword with a view to moving to one central provider for face-to-face and telephone interpreting.

thebigword worked closely with Lambeth’s Corporate Procurement to move all users over to one provider. A key challenge in this area was to gain buy-in from everyone using different face-to-face interpreting providers, in order to gain maximum benefits from using a single provider.

Featured Solutions
• Face-to-Face Interpreting
• Telephone Interpreting
• Management Reporting
• Account Management for transition from existing structure and processes

Challenges

1. To reduce the number of face-to-face interpreting providers from twenty to one single source

2. To reduce spend on interpreting services

3. To work with existing community interpreters

4. To source local interpreters, with a view to ensuring costs are kept to a minimum and to encourage community engagement

5. To have the ability to continually assess and monitor service delivery

Solutions & Benefits

1.  A large number of users move over from multiple face-to-face interpreting providers to one in under a month. With users booking face-to-face interpreters from so many different agencies, it was vital to educate them about the change over quickly and effectively. thebigword approached this challenge by creating a specially tailored plan for roll out to be implemented within a month. Through carefully tailored marketing materials and excellent Account Management skills all users were contacted, educated and converted to using thebigword’s interpreting service within a month, allowing Lambeth Council to reap the benefits from a changeover immediately.
 
2. Considerable savings made by streamlining all face-to-face and telephone interpreting services. thebigword carried out a thorough assessment of where Lambeth Council were using interpreting services, and identified a number of opportunities to reduce existing spend. By moving their interpreting requirements to thebigword, they were able to benefit from specially reduced government rates. Secondly by using a combination of telephone and face-to-face interpreting, Lambeth Council benefited from saving costs where telephone interpreting could be utilised instead of face-to-face interpreters.

3. Local interpreters promote community spirit. As previously there were so many different local agencies supplying local interpreters, it was important to the council that they continue to use local interpreters, who were familiar with the area and the needs of the community. thebigword Interpreting team’s expertise lies in ensuring the right interpreters are matched to the interpreting job, and location of the interpreters to where they must attend is vitally important. thebigword searched their extensive database of qualified and experienced interpreters and were able to ensure a regular supply of appropriately skilled local interpreters.

4. Management reporting assists Lambeth in assessing the service they provide. With so many different agencies supplying interpreters, for Lambeth Council to have a high level view of service usage and delivery was extremely difficult to gather and manage. thebigword recognises the importance of giving clients the tools they need to assess the service we provide. As a result Lambeth’s Corporate Procurement team now have access to regular reporting information, which not only assists them in evaluating the service but importantly helps in future planning of services to the local community, the result; an educated procurement team, who always know exactly how Lambeth’s users  are utilising the service provided.

Solutions

1. Smooth transition from multiple interpreting  providers to thebigword in less than a month

2. Significant reduction in spend by consolidating all interpreting services

3. Local database of interpreters sourced and vetted for Lambeth Council

4. Regular management reporting delivery