Supporting multilingual healthcare research for the University of Manchester and the NHS
Client: University of Manchester, in partnership with the NHS
Sector: Healthcare, medical research and clinical trials
Languages: Arabic, Polish, Romanian and Punjabi
Services: Medical translation, patient information translation, multilingual audio narration, transcription and interview translation
The challenge
The University of Manchester, working in partnership with the NHS, needed language support across a programme of healthcare research including clinical trials and patient-focused studies.
The materials spanned very different audiences. Patient information leaflets, consent forms, results letters and document templates had to work for patients and research participants, while the same programme produced documentation for clinicians, researchers and NHS managers. Medical terminology had to be exact. Patient-facing wording had to stay readable without losing clinical accuracy.
Two further problems sat behind the translation itself. Some patients speak a language fluently but read it with less confidence, so written translation alone would not reach them. And patient interviews recorded in other languages had to become English transcripts before researchers could analyse them at all.
What we did
Medical and healthcare translation. Statements, patient information leaflets, consent forms, results letters and document templates into Arabic, Polish, Romanian and Punjabi, with terminology held consistent across the whole programme.
Multilingual audio narration. Spoken versions of key patient information, giving patients with limited reading confidence another route to the same material. This mattered most for clinical research participation, where informed consent depends on genuine comprehension rather than receipt of a leaflet.
Patient interview transcription and translation. Recorded interviews transcribed in the source language and translated into English, with attention to meaning and context rather than literal wording, so the research team could work with what participants actually said.
Coordinated project management. Written translation, audio production and transcription run as a single project rather than three separate ones.
Results
Four languages: Arabic, Polish, Romanian and Punjabi. An alternative format for patients who find written information hard to access. Patient interview responses made available to English-speaking research teams.
Why this matters
Written translation is a first step, not a finish line. Where literacy, language and clinical risk meet, the format of the information matters as much as its accuracy. Combining translated documents with spoken versions, and bringing recorded interviews back into English, let the research team include participants who would otherwise have been left out of the data entirely.
Our work with the University of Manchester and the NHS continues.
Specialist language services for healthcare and medical research
Knockhundred supports healthcare organisations, universities and research teams with specialist translation, transcription and multilingual audio.
Talk to us about patient information translation, clinical trial documentation, multilingual narration or research interview transcription.
