NHS England has worked with professionals and the public to work out what good quality interpreting (spoken word or British Sign Language (BSL)) and translation (written word or braille transcription) services look like.

Focus groups took place in 2015 and the output of these discussions was a draft set of Principles for Interpreting and Translation Services.In 2016 and 2017 the draft principles were revised and incorporated in to guidance for commissioners. Although written with primary medical care services (GP surgeries) in mind, commissioners may find the contents applicable to other settings, such as other primary care settings or hospital sites

For further information, please e-mail the Primary Care Commissioning Team: england.gpcommissioning@nhs.net.

Next steps

NHS England is exploring further work to support implementation of the principles.

Related work streams

You may want to look at NHS England’s Accessible Information Standard page. In the context of this project, the Accessible Information Standard sets out the NHS’s obligations around providing information in an accessible format for people who use BSL and braille.