In May and June 2022 Sussex NHS to help with a piece of work which aimed to get a quick idea of how people are doing after the worst of the pandemic, understand experiences and gather some views about priorities.
SIS shared the link to an on-line survey with our contacts and brought together a focus group of 12 linguists to discuss these issues. The attending linguists had a collective wealth of experience, and depth of insight to share having attended approximately 900 interpreting sessions since the end of the Omicron lockdown in January 2022.
Key themes that emerged from the discussion were concerns about people’s mental health and the quality of care on offer, access to primary care and the challenges facing people with language needs to use telephone interpreting. The full report can be read here
“We would like to thank Sussex Interpreting Services and the Community Linguists who shared their feedback around health and wellbeing of Ethnically Diverse Communities after the impact of COVID-19. We recognise that whilst there were positive experiences of care during Covid and as we come out the pandemic, people are still struggling to access services in a timely manner and this is further exacerbated for those with language barriers. We are committed to taking this learning and implementing changes to improve our services. We will report back to SIS and the organisations that have taken part in this activity to inform them of the changes and the impact that local communities should see as a result.”
Antonia Bennett, Head of Public Involvement, NHS Sussex
