Provision of Professional Interpreting and Translation Services

Overview

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is seeking to appoint a single supplier to provide a comprehensive, high-quality Interpretation and Translation Service across all Trust sites, including King's College Hospital (Denmark Hill), Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH), Orpington Hospital, Beckenham Beacon, Queen Mary's Hospital Sidcup and associated community locations. The service is intended to support safe, equitable and patient-centred care by enabling effective communication between patients, carers, families and healthcare professionals. The scope includes the provision of face-to-face, telephone, video and interpreting services, together with British Sign Language (BSL) and other non-spoken language support services. The provider will also be required to deliver written translation services for clinical and non-clinical documents, accessible formats such as Braille and Easy Read, and a secure technology-enabled booking, reporting and management platform. The service must operate across a diverse patient population representing more than 80 languages and support both planned and urgent care pathways. The successful provider will be expected to deliver a responsive, scalable and innovative service model that complies with NHS information governance, safeguarding, accessibility and equality requirements, whilst incorporating appropriate human oversight for AI-enabled solutions. The Contracting Authority intends to award a single-provider contract to ensure consistent service delivery, quality assurance, governance, performance reporting and patient experience across the Trust.