{"id":1387,"date":"2012-02-07T22:34:47","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T22:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/?p=1387"},"modified":"2012-02-07T22:34:47","modified_gmt":"2012-02-07T22:34:47","slug":"nhs-translation-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/07\/nhs-translation-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"NHS translation costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a bit of an uproar in the press this week about how much the NHS spends on translation services.<\/p>\n

According to a Freedom of Information request submitted by a health think tank, the NHS spends \u00a359,000 a day on translating documents and providing interpreters \u2013 over \u00a323 million in the past year. <\/p>\n

The think tank is outraged:<\/p>\n

The think tank’s chief executive, Julia Manning, said: “The costs involved are truly staggering in an age of austerity.<\/p>\n

“Urgent action must be taken by trusts to stem the flow of translation costs.<\/p>\n

“The most glaring problem is that NHS trusts translate their own material rather than have access to a central pool of translated documents.”<\/p>\n

The organisation suggested using free internet translation software and easier to understand English rather than medical jargon. (Source: BBC News<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the Department for Health pointed out in response, the NHS has a duty to ensure patients and doctors can communicate with each other. It\u2019s very important to give accurate information when it involves someone\u2019s health; one mistranslated word from a free translation website could make a big difference. Some NHS trusts also have up to 120 languages to translate into, perhaps they’re not all covered by free software?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a bit of an uproar in the press this week about how much the NHS spends on translation services. According to a Freedom of Information request submitted by a health think tank, the NHS spends \u00a359,000 a day on translating documents and providing interpreters \u2013 over \u00a323 million in the past year. The think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200],"tags":[123,25,200],"class_list":["post-1387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translation","tag-language-learning","tag-languages","tag-translation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1388,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions\/1388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}