Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number of full-time translation and interpretation staff working in the NHS; what externally-provided translation and interpretation services are available in the NHS; and if he will publish (a) a list of the providers and (b) the cost to the public purse for those services.

The Department is unable to provide a response about the number of full-time translation and interpretation staff working in the National Health Service, because the data is not held centrally. Information on the externally provided translation and interpretation services used by the NHS, as well as the list of providers they used, can be found in the following provider frameworks:

¾ the Crown Commercial Service, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM6141;

¾ the ESPO Language Services, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.espo.org/language-services-402-24.html;

¾ the NHS London Procurement Partnership Language Services Framework, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.lpp.nhs.uk/categories/estates-facilities-corporate-services/language-services-framework/; and

¾ the NHS Shared Business Services Interpretation and Translation Services Framework, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.sbs.nhs.uk/services/framework-agreements/interpretation-and-translation-services/.

Information on the amount spent under each of these frameworks is not held centrally.