An NHS trust’s translation and interpretation costs have more than doubled in five years sparking concerns immigration is placing severe strain on the Health Service, FoI data obtained by GB News can reveal.
Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust spent £339,806 on translation in 2023/24, enough to hire 13 new nurses or 11 new junior doctors.
That’s up from £149,276 in 2019/20, a rise of 127 per cent, thought to be fuelled by mass migration from non-EU countries who don’t speak English.
It means the Trust has spent £939,868 on translation since 2019, enough to pay for 22,000 GP appointments or 3,200 ambulance call outs.
Berkshire NHS translation costs
GBN
It comes after ONS figures showed net migration to Britain hit 906,000 in 2023/24- far higher than previously thought- with non-EU migrants making up the bulk of the figure.
Indeed, one million non-EU nationals moved to Britain during the period, more than making up for the loss of EU migration post Brexit.
Assuming the translation costs carry on increasing as they have done since 2019, the Berkshire Trust’s costs will hit £1million a year in 2037, a significant financial drain as Britain’s population ages and becomes less healthy.
Driving the increase in costs are requests for Polish, Urdu, Arabic, Punjabi and Farsi translation which were the most commonly translated languages in 2023/24 respectively.
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The revelation has drawn sharp criticism from immigration sceptics who argue these costs are just one piece of proof of mass migration’s financial cost on the NHS.
William Yarwood, media campaign manager of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers are routinely lost for words at the endless revelations about the ballooning cost of translation services in the public sector.
“In the health service the problem seems to be particularly severe, and many will be asking whether the NHS delivers these services as efficiently as they should be.
“The NHS should be looking at whether they can cut down costs using more online services and sharing resources.”
It comes after Health Secretary Wes Streeting promised more money for the NHS but only if significant reforms were made to boost efficiency.
Labour’s budget awarded 22.6 billion extra day to day funding to the NHS, but other than abolishing NHS England, reforms have not been forthcoming.
Critics say this is demonstrated by the continued spending of hundreds of thousands on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion roles, which often come with large pensions, work from home and a slew of other perks on the taxpayer.
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Some argue the money should be channelled into supporting frontline health care staff and tackling spiralling waiting lists instead.
Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust spent £307,181 on DEI last year alone, for example.
This is despite the trust saying in its annual report it has been “balancing the need to reduce waiting times and improve services”.
Almost a third (28 per cent) of the Trust’s patients wait more than four hours to be seen in A&E.
It comes as Britain is gripped in debate over the effects of mass migration on the NHS.
Some argue mass migration strains NHS services as immigrants are more likely to need translators, have health problems and have more children on the NHS.
But others argue immigration is key to propping up the NHS workforce and point to the OBR’s recent analysis that suggest it is the only thing stopping Britain sliding into recession.
Helen Fawcett, a British taxpayer who is concerned about the effects of mass migration, suggested migrants could help the NHS by volunteering.
Responding to previous FoI data about her local NHS trust spending hundreds of thousands on translation, she said: “I am furious about this.
“This situation is yet another result of far too much immigration. The expense is colossal, and I know most taxpayers will have no idea where their hard-earned money is being wasted.
“It seems to me the huge number of immigrants is putting too much strain on the NHS. Perhaps there could be some sort of volunteering effort from ethnic minorities to help with these translation costs.”
Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has been approached for comment.
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