Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to take steps to improve access to interpreters for pregnant women and their families who are receiving maternity and neonatal care; and whether he plans to introduce national guidance to ensure consistency of interpretation provision across all maternity and neonatal services.

Community language translation and interpretation services are crucial for patient safety. The responsibility to commission these services sits with integrated care boards and National Health Service providers as they are better placed to make decisions about how they use their funding based on the needs of their local populations. Local commissioners are responsible for applying the highest quality standards possible.

To identify the most effective way to improve interpretation provision across all clinical services including maternity and neonatal care, NHS England has completed a strategic review, building on the recommendations of independent safety investigations.

In response, NHS England has developed a Framework for NHS action on Community Language Translation and Interpreting, to help improve interpretation services so that they meet the needs of communities and support equitable access, experience, and outcomes for all. A six-month period of engagement work ensured that issues relating to maternal and neonatal care were considered in the development of the Improvement Framework, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/improvement-framework-community-language-translation-interpreting-services/