INTERPRETERS cost Herefordshire's NHS trust hundreds of thousands of pounds, it has been revealed.

The sum spent on interpretation services by Wye Valley NHS Trust, which is responsible for Hereford County Hospital and Hereford, Leominster, and Ross-on-Wye community hospitals, has been revealed by a freedom of information request.

The trust uses two interpretation services, according to the response.

Interpreters are vital to ensure patients who do not speak English receive the right care and understand what is happening to them, but they come at a cost.

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The first is Herefordshire Language Network, which is Herefordshire Council’s in-house language agency, providing face-to-face, video, and telephone interpreting, as well as text translation. 

The trust has used Herefordshire Language Network for more than 10 years, the response said

The second is Prestige Telephone Interpreting, which has been used by the trust since November 2022.

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The trust said Herefordshire Language Network interpreters cost £20 per hour, plus travel expenses, for face-to-face interpreting.

Prestige's telephone interpretation charges are set at £1.10 per minute (minimum of 10 minutes) for all common languages, while rare languages are charged at £1.50 per minute, with each third party call incurring an additional charge of 45p per minute.

The total spend for translation and interpreting for 2022 to 2023 was £200,000, the trust response said.

Wye Valley NHS Trust confirmed that both are rolling yearly contracts, and that the trust currently has no plans to tender.