THE cost of interpreting for hospital patients who do not speak English has risen by more than £30,000.

Derby Hospitals NHS Trust spent £211,133 on interpreting services from April 2007 and March 2008, with hundreds of patients in need of help every month. This compared with £180,200 the previous year.

Rachel Murfin, who is in charge of the service, said the rise was partly due to an increased use of professional interpreters rather than relying on patients' family members and friends.

But she said there were also more Slovakian, Czech and Polish people being treated at Derby City General Hospital and Derbyshire Royal Infirmary.

She said: "While the patient might want someone who speaks English to be with them, we want also a paid interpreter to be present, so there's a shift towards caution there. It's not a formal change in policy as such and we've not actually encountered a problem.

"I suspect it might get more expensive because interpreters of certain languages, such as Slovakian, are very much in-demand so they can put their fees up."

In November, the hospitals used interpreters in 504 sessions, compared with 464 the previous year. In October, the figure was 548 compared with 470, and in September it was 507 compared with 388.

The trust employs two full-time interpreters who offer face-to-face and telephone interpretation in Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi, which are languages most in demand. The hospitals pay by the hour for agency staff who speak all other languages.

Interpreters are provided for about 80 languages, although some are only encountered once every few months.

One of the hospital's two interpreters is Nazlee Choudhry, who said that in the 10 years that she had worked as an interpreter, demand had grown immensely.

She said: "We work with the older generations of people that have come from abroad and then there are the younger people who can speak English but their partners need access to interpreters.

"So, for example, with the Kurdish community we saw a trend where at first we were getting requests from male patients but then the demand shifted to female patients.

"Often, these were women who had come to England after marrying Kurdish men, and needed interpreters during pregnancy and then to help them access children's services.

"A lot of patients have a command of English but are reluctant to use it because they are shy or embarrassed or because medical language is complicated and they want to know what the doctor is saying."