this is a very good question, and was interestingly raised in a different way at a meeting I attended yesterday which suggested that this might also be a 'safeguarding' (POVA) issue.
Can any clinical folk perhaps ask their defence societies ((MDU etc?) and report back?
Mark R D Johnson
Director, MSRC/CEEHD
De Montfort University
Hawthorn Building 00.20, The Gateway
Leicester LE1 9BH
Please don't phone - use e-mail!
We are re-writing our clinical policy on working with interpreters and I wondered if Jan, or other list members, may be able to answer this query.
Is there any legal basis for the suggestion that: if an untrained / non-professional interpreter is used in the consent gaining process (or similar) and misinterpretations occurred that subsequently led to litigation, then the clinical member of staff would be solely responsible, whereas when using (hiring) a professional interpreter, then any mis-interpretations identified would include some degree of responsibility of the interpreter under their professional code of conduct?
I may not have put that very well, but I’m just trying to find out whether the use of professional interpreters would alter the legal accountability in the event of a clinical error.
Alison Devlin
Equalities and Diversity Co-ordinator
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust,
Stephenson House, 75 Hampstead Road, London. NW1 2PL
Tel: 020 3214 5770
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