Availability of interpretation serviceS

1. Availability of interpretation serviceS Ms. Eliza LAW, Hospital Manager (SS)4, Supporting Services, Administrative Services Division, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Background • Enactment of Race Discrimination Ordinance. • There is an increasing demand of interpretation service especially in clinical areas and A&E. • Wards show concern about the low availability of court interpreter. • Hospital staff are unaware of the availability of interpretation service to ethnics minority. Objective To enhance communication between ethnic minority patients and healthcare workers and patients’ understanding on the treatments. Implementation (2008/2009) • To standardize the workflow for handling interpretation services in KCC. • To provide training to all frontlines and supporting staff for how to handle enquiries and support for ethnics minority in collaboration with HAHO Training & Development Section. • To install speaker phone in all wards and GOPCs of KCC in order to facilitate the telephone interpretation. • To provide cue cards, consent forms and information sheets in both GR and TO room, and accessed online via HAHO’s web site. • To promote the interpretation service contract arranged by • HAHO BSSD. Conclusion • The communication between ethnic minority patient and doctor during consultation has been enhanced. • The support to Nursing in arranging interpretation service with contractor has been streamlined. • Staff awareness for culture sensitivity and multilingual support to ethnics minorities have been strengthened. • The turnout of interpreters increases by 177% in the past 5 months compared with last year. • Number of languages / dialects with interpretation service increases from 4 to 9 from 16 June 2008 to 1 June 2009.