Greenwich PCT – Implementing Telephone Interpreting Services

Greenwich Teaching PCT in South-East London serves 252,313 people with 102 GPs operating from 47 different practices. One of the main aims of Teaching PCTs is to increase access to services to promote social inclusion.

The Telephone Interpreting Service for Greenwich PCT was tendered in 2007. Language Line Services secured approved supplier status for both Face-to-Face and Telephone Interpreting Services and started the process of building relationships with the individual PCTs.

For Greenwich PCT, Language Line Services focused on demonstrating the quality of service that it provides. A delegation from Greenwich PCT visited Language Line Services’ offices and shown the range of in-house resources including the Call Centres, the IT suite, Language Resources and Translations teams. Language Line Services is particularly proud of the quality its interpreting and business continuity systems, and Greenwich PCT recognised these benefits and awarded Language Line Services the entire contract.

Greenwich PCT wanted to roll-out the service across all 47 surgeries to improve access for patients and staff while making best use of their budget. Language Line Services’ implementation team identified that the use of dual handset phones would help deliver the PCT’s stated aim of increasing access to services. Dual handset phones are designed to give health professionals and patients maximum benefit from TIS by promoting easy conversation flow with the limited English speaking customers, without the need to pause midstream in a conversation to pass the receiver.

Having secured strategic level buy-in from NHS managers, Greenwich PCT rolled out TIS in selected practices to demonstrate its value. The next stages are to arrange a series of presentations to practice managers not currently using TIS to involve them in the process, as well as letting them know what the benefits are to them and their patients.  Greenwich PCTs’s TIS service started on the 3rd December last year with a soft launch followed by a formal launch event a fortnight later. Although it is early in the relationship, the first signs are very positive. For more information please contact enquiries@languageline.co.uk or click here to see Greenwich PCTs' introductory video.

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