It's never usually been much of a concern...
English-speaking patients are being pushed to the back of the queue in waiting rooms at NHS hospitals in favour of patients who need an interpreter, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Imperial College Healthcare, an NHS Trust with five hospitals across north-west London, prioritises patients who have been assigned an interpreter. The trust's aim is to avoid additional charges from the interpreting service.
One way to do that would be to stop it altogether. No speakee da English? No treatee here!
It is unclear whether NHS trusts nationwide take this approach, but last night it sparked a row, with Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick claiming the approach lets down British NHS patients. The former immigration minister told The Mail on Sunday: 'Brits are already waiting too long for treatment. The last thing they should be subjected to is the indignity of being pushed to the back of the queue.
'This is yet more evidence of the pressure mass migration places on our public services and the difficulties integrating such unprecedented numbers.
The mass migration that happened under the 14 years your party was in office, Robert?
'Non-English speakers shouldn't be given a queue pass.'
They shouldn't be here sponging off the NHS in the first place!
Television doctor Sarah Jarvis said: 'I do understand the rationale in terms of reducing costs to the NHS. I would much prefer vulnerable patients to be prioritised.
'This is not prioritising on the basis of clinical need, which is what doctors believe in.'
Not all doctors, Sarah.
So how long before enterprising multilingual patients book in claiming to have no English at all to bypass the queue?
ReplyDeleteAnd if ‘every patient has the right to a professional interpreter’, where are the interpreters for patients struggling to understand medical staff with very limited English?
(Sample answer given (in an almost impenetrable accent) to a relative attending a palliative care clinic who asked about exercise: “Swim good, also dog walk but not on string and not when weather unhappy”. [The accompanying medical information was all handed over in written form, presumably drawn up in advance because delivering it verbally was deemed beyond the doctor’s capacity.])
Most countries in Europe require patients to hospital or doctors to bring their own interpreters. Is there any sane reason why this can't apply in the UK? My mate, who is undergoing treatment for prostate cancer, is deaf, and has difficulty understanding what is being said. Currently, his daughter interprets using sign language, as the NHS is unable or unwilling to provide assistance, even though she sometimes has to take time off work to do so. As he is white, British, and sustained his deafness through military operations, the cynical side of me suggests this level of (un)helpfulness will continue.
ReplyDeletePenseivat
"Sample answer given (in an almost impenetrable accent) to a relative attending a palliative care clinic who asked about exercise..."
ReplyDeleteYikes!
"Is there any sane reason why this can't apply in the UK? "
There's no sane reason for many other NHS decisions, so no, probably not...
Amazing how they only have these insights when they aren't in power.
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