Hieke, Graham;
Black, Georgia B;
Yargawa, Judith;
Vindrola-Padros, Cecilia;
Gill, Paramjit;
Islam, Lily;
Williams, Emily D;
... Whitaker, Katriina L; + view all
(2025)
South Asian patient experiences of professional interpreting service provision in general practice in England: a qualitative interview study.
International Journal for Equity in Health
, 24
, Article 104. 10.1186/s12939-025-02477-4.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Communication difficulties due to unmet language needs are a driver of inequality in healthcare access. The provision of professional interpreting services should mitigate these, and their use is associated with improved patient outcomes. However, interpreting uptake in England is suboptimal and there has been limited research focused on understanding patient experiences and the potential impact on uptake. This multilingual study explored patient perspectives of access to and experience of language support in general practice (primary care) in England, including the use of professional interpreting services and informal language support (i.e. family/friends). METHOD: This is a qualitative study based on face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 30 participants from South Asian backgrounds (Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi), with no/limited proficiency, living in England. Interviews were analysed with inductive thematic analysis. Patient advisors were involved in all aspects of the research and interpretation of the findings was supported by public engagement focus groups. RESULTS: Three main themes described participants challenges related to uptake of professional interpreting services including (1) the burden of articulating need, (2) prioritisation of different types of language support (professional/informal), and (3) perceptions of professional interpreting services. Participants described an onus on them to arrange interpreting themselves, whilst regular use of informal language support could inhibit offers of professional language support. Online/digital booking systems perpetuated these challenges. Patient illness appraisal impacted decision making, with informal language support prioritised for less serious matters. Patients highlighted the importance of having confidence in these services, and face-to-face interpreting was preferred to remote interpreting. CONCLUSIONS: No/low English proficiency patients need additional support when booking interpreted-assisted appointments. Increasing patient awareness of and confidence in professional language support is vital to uptake of services. Emphasising the benefits of professional support over informal options is important, with links to patient safety. We provide recommendations for general practice in how to support the uptake of professional interpreting services.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | South Asian patient experiences of professional interpreting service provision in general practice in England: a qualitative interview study |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1186/s12939-025-02477-4 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-025-02477-4 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | General practice, Health inequalities, Language barriers, Qualitative methods, Interpreting |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci > Department of Targeted Intervention UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Applied Health Research |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10208180 |
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