By Jennifer Matthys – A new report out this week has revealed that the ‘cash-strapped’ NHS is currently spending £64,000 a day on translation services. Last year, there was more than £23 million spent on translation services, a cost to the British taxpayer that has risen 17% since 2007.

Some of the trusts questioned in this report admitted that they had paid to have their material translated into 120 different languages!

The report reveals that NHS trusts across Birmingham spent £4.9million on translation and interpreters last year while other big spenders included Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which spent £3.7million; Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which spent £2.4million; and London-based Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which spent £2million.

It is staggering that while the NHS nationwide has to make cutbacks that could, will and do directly affect patient well-being, individual trusts seem to feel that it is acceptable to spend such huge sums of money on translations. Worse is that this is not a one-off translation that every trust shares, but translations that they each pay someone separate to translate specifically for their hospitals!

Taxpayers’ money in the NHS should be spent on treatment for the ill, not on language services that line a translator’s pocket.

It emerged last year that the Ministry of Justice spent more than £100 million in six years on translation. They are now cutting their budget by £2billion, and by the next General Election, they plan to have closed almost 150 courts.

In August last year, it was reported that the police had spent £82 million on translators in three years.