Who is Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust?

Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust provides acute and community services to around 260,000 people living in Walsall and the surrounding areas.

The trust is responsible for operating the Walsall Manor Hospital, which saw the completion of a £170 million renovation in 2010 and can now offer the majority of local care services under one roof.

The Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust offers everything from hospital care to at-home services for the elderly and those with long term illnesses, as well as palliative care and end-of-life services.

The challenge

In 2017, Walsall Healthcare NHS was placed under special measures. Within the review, the CQC highlighted the need for improved support for patients where English was not their first language.

Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust needed a service provision that met the needs of the hospital and its community services while ensuring staff could be assured of support when they needed it:

A fully managed service able to handle their extensive needs
Driving of cost efficiencies through technology
Provision of greater data insight and transparency of how the service was run
Counsel on best practice and accessibility across communities
An improvement of service provision over the previous provider
Greater service provision for the D/deaf community.

They needed a provider who could meet at least 95% of their accessibility requirements at the major Walsall Manor Hospital as well as through community services, midwifery, physiotherapy, and nursing.

Delivery and fulfilment rates of 99%+ for last 5 years

650+ bookings per month in 58 different languages

Linkworker management and training

97% of service users rate the service as ‘Very Good’ or ‘Excellent’

How Word360 helped

Using our extensive NHS experience, we were able to implement a fully managed service, including:

Management of in-house link workers
Face-to-face interpreting (on-demand and pre-booked)
Telephone interpreting (on-demand and pre-booked)
Video interpreting
Non-spoken communication (incl. BSL)
Translation and transcription
Ancillary services such as braille, large print, and moon

Under this agreement, we facilitated more than 650 bookings per month in a total of 58 different languages. Word360 implemented a service offering that was inclusive of all the communities the Trust serves, including our extensive BSL provision.

All of our linguists are advanced DBS checked as standard and are available round the clock. They receive ongoing training and support for their work in the healthcare sector, making them experts in their field.

The Results

During the course of Word360’s fully managed agreement with the Trust beginning in 2016, we exceeded every KPI by a minimum of 4.9%, and achieved close to or exactly 100% success rates on all measurables.

Additionally, Word360 undertook language assessments and training with Link workers, and gave priority to matching Link workers with bookings in their languages.

Feedback rates from service users increased to 97% considering the service ‘Very Good’ or ‘Excellent’, and a further CQC inspection in 2017 passed the service provided by Word360.

As a result, the Trust has received a service that goes over and above their requirements and demonstrates a commitment to quality care for the Walsall area.