Overcoming Language Barriers In General Practice Nursing

In another great video, Debbie gives her advice for overcoming language barriers in practice nursing.

Hello, my name is Debbie and I'm a Practice Nurse in London. Today I'm going to be talking about how healthcare professionals in GP practices are able to overcome the language barriers that they face.

As I've mentioned many times, I live in London and the diversity in London is so much that I think it would be so ignorant for me as a healthcare professional to not have multiple ways of being able to communicate with various patients.

The area that I live in is predominantly Asian, Indian, Pakistani, so it's important that as a healthcare professional in this setting, I'm able to communicate with my patients and my patients are able to communicate with me. Patients are not able to communicate their problems if they feel like there's no means, and then treatment and diagnosis won't be accurate.

So here are a few ways in which I, as a healthcare professional, ensure that I'm able to provide the best care that I can when there is a language barrier.

Ask The Patient If There Is Someone They Can Call

Number one, I always offer if the patient has a friend or family member that they would like to call. The reason why I use this as a first resort and not a language line, which I'll speak about later, is because sometimes people just feel a lot more comfortable when they have somebody that they know on the phone explaining on their behalf.

So I offer, "Do you have a friend or a family member that you can call, and they can speak to me on the phone?"

We live in a very diverse country… it's inexcusable that healthcare professionals are unable to see patients or get to the bottom of their issues simply because of a language barrier.

Book An Interpreter

Number two, I will generally book an interpreter. Now, this can be done in two ways. It can be a telephone interpreter, or a face-to-face interpreter. Ideally a face-to-face interpreter, however these are not always easy to come by.

A telephone interpreter doesn't need to be pre-booked or anything like that. You just call a number, say the language that you want, and you can generally get them right there and then. This is so helpful, and you can literally see the patient come alive when there's someone on the phone who understands their language or what they have to say.

These appointments generally take quite a long time because it's almost like you're having two people at once telling you the same thing, which can be quite difficult, for both patients and understanding, but you'll get to the bottom of whatever it is that the patient has come in for.

And generally, as much as phoning a friend (I would prefer to do that), a lot of the times these telephone interpreters know medical terminology and they are able to just describe the situation a lot better than a friend or family member because they may not understand certain words in medical terms.

So, either/or is always good, but at the same time, you just have to gauge the situation and see what is working and what isn't working. Sometimes I have patients who decide to phone a friend or family member, and that person also doesn't speak as much English as them, so it's just a never-ending cycle and says that "Okay, would you like me to call a telephone interpreter or book another day for a face-to-face?”

Find A Colleague Who Speaks The Same Language

As The Patient Number three, which I will say is probably your easiest option- although in a GP practice there's not as many staff as in the hospital- you can always ask if there's anybody in your practice that speaks the language that the patient speaks.

If they can interpret for you, this is always helpful because they know the patient or the patient is registered in our practice, so they're able to also document that they were with the patient, they saw the patient as well, and this is always helpful.

Use Google Translate As A Last Resort

Lastly, and this is usually my last resort, and you'd be surprised that a lot of the patients bring out their phones as well, is things like Google Translate or any form of translation using their phone.

I sometimes deter from that simply because sometimes things are just not translated well, or they're translated directly. But a lot of the times patients will bring out their phone and they will type things in, and we will just have a dialogue in that way.

If it's nothing too severe or major, I'll accept that as form of translation. Otherwise, again, I would resort to the other ways of getting the translator. But a lot of the times patients will bring out their phone, especially if they're from a younger generation, to help them translate.

I hope this helps. We live in a very diverse country, not even just the city that I live in, whereby like I said before, it's inexcusable that healthcare professionals are unable to see patients or get to the bottom of their issues simply because of a language barrier.

Thanks for watching!