“The services provided by the hospital were good and I received good care. I have not received a good service from the GP practice. I cannot make an appointment when I need. I did not feel safe at work. I suffer from asthma and have a heart condition and not all my colleagues wore a…
We were contacted recently by a Migrant Support Worker from the fantastic Voice in Exile organisation. For over a week she had been trying to set up a GP appointment for a Service User. We offered to help. We called the GP Surgery and after a long and complicated outgoing message and a 20 minute…
We were contacted recently by a Social Worker from one of the Local Authorities we work with. They were trying to support a teenager who had been trafficked into the UK. It was proving difficult to establish which language the person spoke – there were three possibilities. The Police and Social Services were trying hard…
Recently we received a referral from Pathways To Independence on behalf of a teenage refugee who needed to update important immunisations at their G.P. Surgery. We checked the appointment with staff at the Surgery over the Bank Holiday week. After several calls we were able to speak with a member of the Surgery staff who…
We are working as flexibly as possible to meet the urgent social and health care needs of NHS patients during this unprecedented emergency. Recently a Cantonese/Mandarin speaking interpreter arrived at Sussex Eye Hospital to interpret for an important post-surgery consultation. She had her temperature checked before entering and wore a face mask. The patient had…
When did you first come into contact with SIS? 1998 I arrived in the UK with my three children aged 14, 6 and 7 months. I was stopped by Immigration because the Portuguese ID card I was using was not genuine. Social Services were called because of the children, but I could not speak English,…
A call came through to the SIS Coordination Team from the Lewes Victoria Hospital. The Hospital can’t communicate with a patient and are concerned because he needs important treatment, and they don’t know if they have the correct home address for him. The GP Surgery he was registered at has returned their letter saying he…
The partner of a service user called on Friday afternoon, Valentine`s Day, to say that her husband was in A&E and needed an interpreter. She was anxious as there had been times recently when her husband was in A&E in the early hours of the morning when no interpreter was present as SIS had not…
We received the following feedback from a Clinical Psychologist: The Albanian Interpreter [Q] came in to do an afternoon interpreting session, even though she had only got home from holiday in the early hours of that morning (her late night did not negatively affect her interpreting, this was not a problem). Because she came in…
We recently responded to an emergency interpreting request from a local Maternity Department. The call came just before 21.00 on a Sunday evening. We provided an interpreter on site within an hour – our regular response time! 3 hours later were able to record another successful birth! We received this lovely feedback from the parents…
