Health Links

What is the service?

Our Health Links service aims to improve access to healthcare for adults and children whose first language is not English. We provide an interpreting, translating, and advocacy service in Bristol and the surrounding area. Our service aims to help overcome cultural and language barriers in healthcare and improve health and communication within black and ethnic minority communities.

What does this service do?

Our Health Links service aims to identify and respond to the health needs of different communities in Bristol. We are an expert resource on issues relating to black and minority ethnic communities across Bristol.

Our interpreters act as the language link between healthcare professionals and patients. They can accompany Health professionals when they visit patients at home and are also able to be present in some Bristol GP practices to interpret between patients and GPs or other healthcare professionals.

We are committed to helping to reduce inequalities in access to healthcare. We do this by:

• helping to overcome cultural and language barriers within the healthcare setting
• Improving access to healthcare
• promoting cultural awareness
• identifying sensitive issues within the healthcare environment and how different communities perceive these issues
• promoting patient awareness of health issues
• educating communities on how best to meet their individual healthcare needs
• signposting people to relevant services
• helping to inform health care professionals on how best to target particular hard to reach communities

Who is this service for?

Our service is for all black and minority ethnic communities in Bristol who have difficulty in accessing health services due to language and cultural barriers. Our in house Link Workers speak the following languages: Arabic, Cantonese, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Somali and Bengali.

We also have access to Bank Link Workers who can speak and interact with patients in the following languages: Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Bengali (Dhaka and Sylheti), Czech, Dutch, Farsi, French, Georgian, Guajarati, Hungarian, Kosovan, Kurdish (Sorani), Lingala, Mandarin, Pashtu, Persian, Polish, Punjabi, Pashto, Romanian, Russian, Slovakian, Tigrinya, Turkish, Thai, Tamil, Vietnamese and Urdu.

How can I access this service?

You can contact your health care professional to discuss interpreting needs.

To access our Health Links service a referral form must be completed and sent to us by telephone, fax or e-mail using the contact detaisl below.·The referral form must be completed by one of the following people or organisations:

• health care professional
• health care professional from one of our other services
• a healthcare, voluntary or statutory organisations

How to contact us

Patients can contact the service directly with queries and to request link workers. There is usually someone in the office to take telephone calls from Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm. If there is no one available to take your call you can leave a message on our answer phone or alternatively you can call our team mobile phone number, or e-mail us, and someone will contact you as soon as possible.

 Health Links

Charlotte Keel Health Centre

Seymour Road

Easton

Bristol

BS5 0UA

• [email protected]
•  0117 902 7115 or 07900 264435
• 0117 952 1269