Translations for hospital patients who cannot speak English will be done on the phone as part of cost-cutting.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is to bring its interpreting service in-house after costs soared to £2million a year.

The board is to end a contract with the council-run, Glasgow Translation and Interpreting Service, which provides most of the work for the health board.

From October, interpreting services for patients who do not speak English as a first language in GP surgeries and hospitals will mainly be done over the telephone instead of face-to-face.

The board said waiting for interpreters to arrive leads to delays for patients. However, fears have been raised that the service could be compromised by the change.

Glasgow has the highest spend for any health board in Scotland on translation services for around 86 languages including Mandarin, Polish, Punjabi, Urdu and Arabic.

The board is developing an interpreting and translation service which it said would deliver the “most effective and efficient” service for patients who have very little English.

Legislation requires the NHS to deliver services to best help any member of the public, whether they have vis-ual or hearing impairments, or are a tourist or refugee in Scotland.

Hospitals and GP practices in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde area deal with around 61,000 interpreting requests every year. Read more.

See: Evening Times