CARDIFF Council’s Wales Interpretation and Translation Service (WITS) stands to be charged with recklessly endangering Deaf People’s health by knowingly operating a Sign Language Interpreting service that is widely recognised to be flawed.
In 2009 a bureaucratic triarchy comprising of Gwent Police, Cardiff Council and the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board instigated an initiative to provide an interpreter service for foreign born nationals who wanted access to statutory services, such as the NHS and courts. The well intentional initiative that was designed to save public money and reduce bureaucracy. The entity was known as the Wales Interpreter and Translation Service (WITS) and was based in a Gwent Police station, managed by senior Gwent Police officers.
However, it was decided by the WITS instigators to include British Sign Language (BSL) interpreting services for Deaf people. There was no consultation with the Deaf community about this seizure of Sign Language services. Gwent Police and WITS unilaterally and undemocratically seized control over the well tried and trusted BSL interpreter services away from the charities providing Sign Language services for Deaf people. Gwent Police administered the WITS even though it was later admitted that “it had no powers to trade” and was effectively acting illegally. In 2010 the Welsh Government Minister, Carl Sargeant, launched the service and brushed aside concerns about including BSL interpreter services within WITS.
After 7 years of discussions the Health Board has moved no further forward, so we have put proposals to the Board as to how the WITS service can be improved. (See attached). We hope that the WITS advisory board will consider radical changes to the BSL service at its next meeting later this month. Cardiff Council have now agreed that a representative from the British Deaf Association be invited to attend the meeting to outline the problems that the WITS system presents to the Deaf community. This comes after the Deaf community lobbying for such an arrangement since 2010.
Gwent Police, Cardiff Council and Welsh Government Minister, Jane Hutt, have now apologised for the failure to consult the Deaf community in 2009/10 when WITS was set up.
When WITS seized control of Sign Language (BSL) Interpreters services no training was given to the front-line staff of the Welsh Health Boards and NHS Trusts on how to handle requests from Deaf patients for Sign Language interpreters. As a result, NHS staff mishandled some requests, and this resulted in Deaf patients attending NHS appointments to find that no BSL interpreters were present because none had been requested by the NHS bureaucrats concerned. Appointments were thus cancelled or deferred as a result, with health consequences in some cases. Deaf patients had previously made such requests to the Deaf Charities running interpreter services, now this empowerment was taken away from them with Welsh Government approval.
As Gwent Police “had no powers to trade” the service was taken over by Cardiff Council in 2017. The Council continued with the flawed Gwent police policy of banning Deaf patients from contacting WITS directly for an interpreter. Deaf patients continued to rely on untrained NHS bureaucrat to arrange BSL interpreters, with the same outcomes of no interpreter being present for some medical consultations. These failures are not recorded in the WITS statistics.
