Translation services / Interpreting - Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

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Any patient attending the hospital can have an interpreter. This can be requested by the doctor who referred you to the hospital, or by contacting your hospital team to make sure this has been arranged for you.

We use professional interpreters

For a number of reasons we recommend that you use our interpreters and not family members or friends to interpret for you.

This is because:

You could be embarrassed talking about your condition
You may not want to provide information to the clinician if your family or friends are listening
You may not have medical information correctly interpreted for you
Your family or friend:
May not give you information if they feel it could be upsetting for you
Could become upset, especially if they are a child
May be embarrassed to interpret some words
May not be able to interpret medical words, condition or treatment
You may not be able to fully consent to treatment

If your carer is normally your interpreter, please try to tell the hospital team before your appointment, or when you come for your appointment.

Interpreters in an Emergency

If you need to come to the hospital in an emergency, for instance you need to come in to A&E (also called the Emergency Department or ED), an interpreter can be requested on arrival.

The A&E department can access an interpreter (video or audio) via an iPad to talk with you. This also includes British Sign Language.

Methods of interpreting

Face to face interpreting

This is available for:

Spoken language – more information can be found about our supplier of interpreters on the LanguageLine Solutions website.
Sign language – more information can be found about our supplier of sign language interpreters on the website for the Leeds Society for Deaf & Blind People.

Video and audio interpreting

Over 200 languages are available for video and audio interpreting via an app on hospital iPads – more information can be found on the LanguageLine Solutions website.