Questionnaire survey of interpreter use in accident and emergency departments in the UK

Objective-To determine the support for a national telephone interpreter ser vice from accident and emergency (A&E) departments across the UK, and the f actors that may influence that support. To determine the nature of interpre ter needs for these departments. Methods-Postal questionnaire survey of 255 A&E departments in the UK. Results-A total of 197 replies were received, a response rate of 77.3%. Alt ogether 186 respondents answered the question on support for a national tel ephone interpreter service and 124 (66.7%) would support one. Those departm ents in favour were no more Likely to have required an interpreter in the l ast seven days (chi(2)=0.16, df=1, p=0.69), be in the inner city (Fisher's exact test, two sided probability, p=l), have predominantly local populatio n needs compared with tourist needs (chi(2)=0.65, df=1, p=0.42), or be curr ent users of a telephone interpreter service (chi(2)=0.01, df=1, p=0.93). S eventy nine of 180 (42.9%) departments had used some form of interpreter in the seven days preceding completion of the survey. Seventy six of 86 (88.4 %) of those departments using face to face interpreters had experienced dif ficulty obtaining an interpreter out of hours. Nationally, the following pr oportion of all A&E departments listed the named language as occurring amon g the three most common languages requiring interpretation: French 0.46 (95 % confidence interval 0.42 to 0.50), Urdu 0.30 (0.26 to 0.34), and German 0 .24 (0.21 to 0.27). Conclusions-There is widespread need and support for a national telephone i nterpreter service that would match the requirements of 24 hour emergency h ealth care provision.