Response form for consultation on draft compliance notice

Transcription

1 Response form for consultation on draft compliance notice Consultation closing date: 10 October 2018 Name of body: Powys Teaching Health Board The Welsh Language Commissioner ( the Commissioner ) is consulting with the body ( you ) on the contents of your draft compliance notice in accordance with section 47 of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 ( the Measure ). You should consider the contents of the draft compliance notice alongside the Welsh Language Standards (No.7) Regulations 2018 ( the regulations ). If you do not participate in the consultation, this does not prevent the Commissioner from issuing you with a final compliance notice. The Measure 1 notes that it is your responsibility to show that the requirement to comply with a standard, or to comply with it in a particular respect, is unreasonable or disproportionate. On the basis of evidence received as part of this consultation, the Commissioner may impose other standards included within the regulations that have not been imposed within the draft compliance notice. 2 Please return this form together with any other further information to compliancenotice@welshlanguagecommissioner.wales by the above closing date. The response form has been divided into two parts: 1 Section 57(2) of the Measure 2 A draft compliance notice is the notice given under section 47 of the Measure

2 Part 1: Confirming whether or not you carry out an activity Before determining the contents of your compliance notice under section 44 of the Measure, the Commissioner wishes to receive further information and/or evidence in relation to specific standards and the degree in which you carry out or are likely to carry out an activity. Please complete the column on the right. Activity Receiving inpatients Standard(s) Do you undertake the activity or are you likely to undertake the activity? Please place an x in the appropriate box X Yes already undertake the activity No and not likely to undertake the activity in the future No but likely to undertake the activity in the future Service delivery Holding case conferences Use of social media Awarding of grants (including e.g. grants for charities) Awarding of contracts (including e.g. enquiring about quotes) 25 X Yes already undertake the activity No and not likely to undertake the activity in the future No but likely to undertake the activity in the future X Yes already undertake the activity No and not likely to undertake the activity in the future No but likely to undertake the activity in the future X Yes already undertake the activity No and not likely to undertake the activity in the future No but likely to undertake the activity in the future X Yes already undertake the activity No and not likely to undertake the activity in the future No but likely to undertake the activity in the future Page 1 of 30

3 Policymaking Operational Offering educational courses Making decisions in relation to providing primary services Using Welsh within the body s internal administration. Particularly, the body s use of ESR for the purposes of standards (and others if relevant) and the body s responsibility in relation to that system. 63 X Yes already undertake the activity No and not likely to undertake the activity in the future No but likely to undertake the activity in the future 78-78A X Yes already undertake the activity (and others) No and not likely to undertake the activity in the future No but likely to undertake the activity in the future Please provide comments here regarding your responsibilities towards the ESR system and the standards affected by that system. ESR is a nationally procured and managed system. It is an Oracle based system that as been customised for use across NHS England and Wales. ESR, it is not currently available through in Welsh. Changes would need to be led at a national level. The system is the NHS HR a Payroll system. It has a limited bi-lingual interface. The full implementation of Standards 80 and 81 will not be possible until a true Welsh version is available. Discussions regarding this are being led by Welsh Government. As and when the full Welsh language functionality becomes available, Powys Health Board will need to consider what additional resources will be needed to implement the developments. The following information was provided by NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership (NWSSP): The provision of ESR Self Service screens in Welsh has been fully explored by the NHS Wales ESR Hire to Retire Programme Board. The nature of the contract with the DH and WG means that Wales contributes approx. 7% of the overall contract. It has been established that changing Page 2 of 30

4 the screens to Welsh is technically not a possibility within the existing contract. We are currently halfway through the ESR contact which is 5 years (plus an option to extend for a further 2 years). At such time the requirement for Welsh Self Service screens can be reviewed and factored into the future solution. Some enhancements have enabled us to maximise the use of Welsh within ESR screens however. To that end the following is available for organisations to promote the Welsh Language: Announcements Portal this communication aid enables announcements to be visible from the ESR portal home page. These announcement can be bi-lingual so a Welsh version of the communication can be generated first followed by the English version. They can also be targeted to specific staff groups. E-Learning within ESR whist many e-learning programmes are already available in both Welsh and English, there is an ongoing translation programme to ensure key e-learning that is required by NHS Wales and the wider public sector continues to be developed bi-lingually Recording Welsh Language competences whilst there is already a means of recording welsh language competences in ESR, this is not really intuitive. To that end an enhancement requirement is being developed so that employees can record their level of competence with reading, writing and speaking Welsh easily. This will provide visibility on the welsh language competences of the NHs Wales workforce The Digital workforce Solutions (ESR) team has created a You tube channel which will host a range of how to animated ESR guidance documents. These will be translated so the content and voice over is available in Welsh as well as English. This is being discussed with WG Welsh Language lead The ESR Portal enables organisations to promote links to key workforce systems or externally hosted environments e.g. e-expenses. NHS Page 3 of 30

5 Recruiting and appointing. Particularly, the body s use of NHS Jobs and Trac Jobs systems (and any other relevant systems) and the body s responsibilities in relation to those systems Wales s organisations can therefore create a link for employees Welsh Language web page/welsh language standards etc. ESR enables organisations to assess the Welsh Language Skills of employees (use above). An enhancement is also being progressed to Improved Welsh Language Data monitoring of for staff undertaking Apprenticeships. Many of the Induction e-learning modules are available in Welsh. Face to face course available through the medium of Welsh can be advertised in Welsh through ESR. Please provide comments here regarding your responsibilities towards these recruiting and appointing systems and the standards affected by those systems. PTHB jobs are advertised on NHS Jobs. Job adverts, job descriptions and person specifications are currently available in English only, unless a Welsh essential job is advertised. PTHB does not currently have the resources to translate all job descriptions both in terms of finances (given the cost of translation) and staff who are able to translate documents. Delays in the recruitment process would be unavoidable. PTHB uses the TRAC recruitment system which is maintained by the NHS Wales Shared Service Partnership. TRAC is used to generate vacancy requests. Welsh language functionality is available, but the health board has not switched on the Welsh language functionality. This is because current functionality requires all job adverts, job descriptions and person specifications to be available in Welsh and, as mentioned above, PTHB does not currently produce these documents in Welsh as a matter of course. Page 4 of 30

6 The draft Compliance Notice prepared by the Welsh Language Commissioner includes standard 107A. This requires all job descriptions to be published in Welsh and English. However, standard 106A does not require all job adverts to be published in Welsh and English, only those that relate to jobs where Welsh language skills are essential, desirable, and must be learnt. This means that adverts that relate to jobs that do not require Welsh language skills can be in English only. Our understanding is that TRAC functionality will not allow this, in that it all documents must be in Welsh. The TRAC system does not allow for Health Boards to select which functions must be performed bilingually. All TRAC system activity must either be wholly bilingual or monolingual for all posts advertised. The TRAC system was procured nationally and its functionality cannot be determined by individual Health Boards. Carrying out clinical consultations Audio announcements in the workplace The current TRAC system, therefore, does not enable compliance with Standards 106A and 107A. [please see additional information provided by NWSSP in the comment box below in order to demonstrate the complexities of TRAC and supporting processes] A X Yes already undertake the activity No and not likely to undertake the activity in the future No but likely to undertake the activity in the future 114 Yes already undertake the activity X No and not likely to undertake the activity in the future No but likely to undertake the activity in the future Comment box for any additional information from you: Page 5 of 30

7 Information provided by NWSSP regarding recruitment The NWSSP uses the NHS Jobs website to advertise vacant posts on NHS Jobs. The NWSSP uses the TRAC Recruitment Management System to facilitate the recruitment process for recruiting managers within NWSSP. The system runs alongside NHS Jobs in managing applications made, sends notifications to recruiting managers and applicants/candidates and manages the recruitment process for each position advertised through NHS Jobs. NWSSP has the responsibility of providing NHS Jobs and Trac with system translations and ensuring any templates in the system that are available to candidates or referees are bilingual. The NHS Jobs Website and interface is currently available in Welsh and English. NWSSP is responsible for ensuring that the pages of this website are bilingual and that they comply with Standards 39 & 40. Health Boards, Trusts and other organisations within NHS Wales, including NWSSP are responsible for populating NHS jobs with job adverts, job descriptions and person specifications for their own respective organisations. Each organisation is currently responsible for determining if the content that they publish i.e. adverts, job descriptions etc. are available in Welsh and English or English for Welsh Essential and Welsh Desirable posts. However, within our response to the Draft Compliance Notice issued to our host organisation, we ve outlined that it will be challenging for the NWSSP to translate over 400 job adverts, job descriptions and person specifications as outlined in Standards 106, 106A, 107, 107A. The TRAC Recruitment Management System is a back-office functioning system that works alongside NHS Jobs (as mentioned above) in order to facilitate the recruitment process for managers/candidates through from application to appointment and issuing employment contracts. The following steps are covered by the TRAC system to ensure the recruitment process is implemented effectively for every vacancy appointment in NHS Wales. Vacancy approval; Advertising; Page 6 of 30

8 Applications; Shortlisting; Inviting to interview; Issuing Conditional Offer Letters; Completing pre-employment checks including requesting references; Issuing Unconditional offer letter; Issuing Contracts of Employment. NWSSP invested time, resource and funding to translate the Candidate Interface on the TRAC Recruitment Management System in This work has resulted in the following being available in Welsh to candidates: On-line Application Form; Guidance on how to apply for a post; notifications templates for candidates at every stage of recruitment; Interview invitations; Conditional Offers; Pre-Employment Check Invitations; Occupational Health forms; Reference s; Unconditional Offer Letters; All Wales Contract of Employment. Each organisation is responsible for determining if the content that they publish i.e. adverts, job descriptions etc. are available in Welsh and English or English for Welsh Essential and Welsh Desirable posts, and making those documents available in order to make the TRAC system and NHS Jobs fully bilingual. The TRAC Candidate Interface was developed to comply with the Welsh Language Standards, whereby each organisation would be required to provide job adverts etc. in Welsh Standards 106, 106A, 107, 107A, 108, 109. In a meeting with the Welsh Language Commissioner s Office on the 8th of August 2018, the NWSSP Welsh Language Officer explained that until the functionality of the candidate interface was being utilised fully, it would not be reasonable or proportionate to Page 7 of 30

9 consider or propose translating the manager s interface on TRAC due to capacity and justification of spending scarce budgets until there was certainty that it would be fully utilised based on evidence of use on the candidate interface. The Welsh language functionality has not been switched on, due to the fact that Health Boards, Trusts and other NHS Organisations haven t agreed to switch the functionality on. The main reason for this being that they ve indicated to the NWSSP that they don t have capacity to translate every advert and any other documents such as JD s and PS s. In our response to the Draft Compliance Notice in part 2 of this form, NWSSP has outlined that it will be challenging for the NWSSP to translate over 400 job adverts [435 posts were advertised in 2017/18], job descriptions and person specifications as outlined in Standards 107, 107B. Standard 57: Information Provided by NWSSP Procurement Services Procurement services for PTHB are provided by NWSSP. The following information was provided by NWSSP: The NWSSP will be able to comply with this standard whereby the subject matter of the contract suggests that it should be produced in Welsh, and will treat the Welsh language version of any invitation equally with an English language version. The NWSSP has interpreted the types of invitations to tender that fall into this category as: Welsh Language Translation services; Welsh Language Interpretation/Simultaneous/Consecutive Translation services; Welsh Language Training services; Welsh Language work-based learning courses. The NWSSP supports in the facilitation of procuring contract services for Health Boards and the Trusts in Wales, including for the NWSSP itself. The invitation to tender (ITT) process ensures efficiencies and impartiality. PTHB staff are responsible for drawing up specific requirements for service delivery and are responsible for considering the delivery of Welsh language services and to determine when and when they are not required. If a service is identified as needing to be available in Welsh, the contractor market may not always require the advert and ITT to be available in Welsh, but rather a clear indication within the specification of the scope of service and for the delivery of the service itself to be available in Welsh. Page 8 of 30

10 Additional questions by the Commissioner: Operational Standards The Commissioner understands that some arrangements are in place between Powys Teaching Health Board and the community health councils (CHCs) which deals with the way in which the CHCs are operated. After considering the situation further following the individual discussions as well as receiving legal advice, the Commissioner does not have sufficient assurance regarding the relevance of the operational standards to the CHCs. As a result, the Commissioner is eager to receive confirmation on the situation by virtue of this consultation and therefore there are a series of questions below for you to consider and respond to. It should be noted that similar questions have also been sent to all of the CHCs. 1. Can you please confirm whether or not persons working for community health councils (CHCs) are considered to be employees of Powys Teaching Health Board? Yes. PTHB employs officers working for the Board of CHC s and the seven CHC s. The Chair of the Board of CHC s is a ministerial appointment. PTHB does not direct the work of the Board of CHC s or the seven CHCs. 2. Likewise, can you please confirm whether or not persons working for CHCs are considered to be members of staff of Powys Teaching Health Board? Persons working for the Board of CHC s and the seven CHCs are required to comply with PTHB s policies and procedures. PTHB does not direct the work of persons working for the Board of CHC s or the seven CHCs. [If persons working for CHCs are considered to be the employees and/or members of staff of Powys Teaching Health Board, then you should consider that those persons come within the scope of the operational standards which refer to those terms like any other employees/staff working directly for the Health Board. You should consider this when responding to the reasonableness and proportionality of those standards.] 3. Do you know whether the contract of employment of a person working for a community health council is made between the person and the community health council or between the person and Powys Teaching Health Board? If possible, it would be useful to receive a copy of a template please. Page 9 of 30

11 Between the person and PTHB. 4. Does Powys Teaching Health Board have any involvement and/or responsibility in the process of appointing members to the CHCs? No. PTHB employees the officers of the Board of CHC s and the seven CHCs only. 5. Does Powys Teaching Health Board have any other responsibilities over the CHCs, for example accommodation? Accommodation is provided by the Welsh Government. Part 2: The reasonableness and proportionality of the standards Please note in this part of the form any standard(s), included within this draft compliance notice (if any), which you consider to be unreasonable and/or disproportionate. If so, please provide reasons and/or evidence to support your position. Where appropriate, you should note whether varying the requirement in accordance with section 44(2) of the Measure (see examples below, such as imposing a different imposition day or imposing another standard relating to the same activity) would make it a reasonable and/or proportionate requirement. You are also welcome to attach any additional materials separately should you wish. Some standards are reliant on each other. The regulations include tables (in Part 2 of Schedules 1 and 3) to accompany the service delivery standards and operational standards. These tables note which other standards need to be imposed when a particular standard is included in a compliance notice. Page 10 of 30

12 e.g. Imposition day of 12 months rather than 6 months. A longer imposition day for a particular department within the organisation. Standards that the draft Compliance Note Sates that PTHB is required to comply with within 6 months or 12 months Standards 4 and 5 We feel that these Standards are not wholly reasonable or proportionate. The draft regulations, standard 4 included the word individual, while the final standard includes the word person which changes the requirements significantly and we have concerns about its impact on the efficiency of our daily business operations. PTHB staff correspond with several persons every day, both formally and informally. The standard would require every member of staff to correspond bilingually every time they write to more than one person, irrespective of the known language preference of the recipients. We would be grateful if you would take account of the following when considering our request to vary the standard: Standards 4 and 5 would place new requirements on PTHB to correspond bilingually with persons, which include colleagues in health boards, trusts, local government, etc. Currently, we do not have systems or budgets in place to enable compliance with these standards. We need reasonable time to calculate the additional costs of translation accurately and to formulate and submit budget bids. We also need reasonable time to establish efficient, timely and cost effective business processes for translation of correspondence that fall under these two standards We request a variation to the standards, which allows staff to correspond in Welsh only, English only or bilingually based on the known language preference of the recipient. We also request an exemption for informal business correspondence. For example, internal day to day interactions between staff, correspondence with other health board s and trusts, peer to peer interactions and networks. etc. PTHB also requests that consideration is given to limiting the types of correspondence that fall under these standards to patient appointment letters, public notices and newsletters etc. We also request that the compliance/imposition date is amended to 18-months. Page 11 of 30

13 Due to the low numbers of staff with Welsh Language skills working in the health board, to meet this standard we would need to heavily rely on scarce and costly translation services. Our staff correspond with several persons several times daily. Those staff who are less fluent or less confident Welsh speakers would need access to translation services to enable them to correspond bilingually every time, irrespective of whether they may, in some circumstances, know that none of the recipients speak Welsh. This would be wholly unnecessary, time consuming and costly, and it would have a significant adverse impact on the efficiency of our business, with no benefit to the recipients. We are of the view that the requirement to correspond bilingually when the language preference is known is unreasonable. We therefore seek a variation to standard 4, reflecting the requirements of standard 5, where bilingual correspondence is required only when the language preference is not known. It is highly likely that non-welsh speaking persons may not respond to a query about language choice, and therefore there could be occasions when we will issue correspondence bilingually for no reason, which clearly would have resource implications. PTHB does not employ translators within the organisation therefore translation is contracted to external agencies. We are currently struggling to ensure timely translation due to the growing scarcity of such resources. These Standards will lead to delays in the issue of information. Particular areas of pressure would be complaints and concerns, and correspondence to the Chief Executive, Chairman or Directors. Standard 5 will impact significantly on our ability to comply with national deadlines set in relation to response times for complaints, Freedom of Information requests etc. Page 12 of 30

14 Standard 8, 9, 10, 15 and 16 The time given to implement these standards is considered to be unreasonable. Standard 8: This will be the easiest of the Standards to comply with, as we understand form discussions with the Welsh Language Commissioners Office that a simple greeting such as Bore Da, Prynhawn Da. We are developing scripts for staff and will need to provide training but it will take longer than 6 months to ensure consistency and compliance across all out sites. Standard 9: Informing people that a Welsh language service is available is not an issue. However, we need longer than 6- months to get that service in place and operating consistently and effectively. While the health board welcomes calls in Welsh it is not always possible to meet requests to speak to a Welsh speaker due to the capacity and availability of Welsh speakers. The health board will need more time to assess the Welsh language skills of the workforce and gradually recruit Welsh speaking staff in frontline positions before putting a system in place ensure a consistent Welsh language service. Further, we will need to identify the roles of staff who will require training, current levels of proficiency and how much training is required. We may need to redeploy staff in current positions where Welsh language will be essential going forward and who are unable to learn Welsh to the required standard this will need to be done sensitively and will therefore need time. The health board s main telephone service is manned 24 hours a day. In order to comply with standard 15 the health board would require more time to recruit new staff and train existing staff to a sufficient level to provide Welsh Language telephone services as staff must be able to translate and deal with any messages. Page 13 of 30 We request that the compliance/imposition date in respect of Standard 8 is amended to 12-months so that we can organise Iaith gwaith training for frontline staff. This would need to be rolled out gradually over a 12- month period so that day to day services are not affected. We request that the compliance/imposition date for Standards 9, 10, 15 and 16 is amended to 24-months. This will give the health board time to recruit new staff and train existing staff to a sufficient level to provide Welsh Language telephone services i.e. to offer a Welsh language service, hold initial conversations in Welsh until transferring to a Welsh speaker or telling them no Welsh Speaker is available We assure the Welsh Language Commissioner that we will endeavour to meet the requirements of these Standards through training, and the recruitment of more Welsh speakers. Before we can comply with the standards we need to ensure that a reasonable percentage of staff would be able to provide at least a basic telephone service in Welsh. The health board will continue offer MP3 files of voice mail messages upon request by staff and will assist staff with pronouncing bilingual greetings. We will also develop operating procedures for passing a call onto a Welsh speaker,

15 Standards 17 and 18 We feel that this Standard is not wholly reasonable or proportionate - this standard gives us cause for concern. PTHB staff currently provide their telephone numbers in their signatures. The requirements of this standard will inevitably mean that in order to comply with this standard, we will have no option but to instruct its non Welsh speaking staff to remove these details from their signatures since they will be unable to comply with the standard if they receive external calls. We suggest that in order to comply with this standard, a non Welsh speaking staff member would give a bilingual greeting on answering the telephone (in line with standard 8). In order to give the health board time to explore telephony options and increase the Welsh language skills of the workforce we request a compliance/ imposition date of 24 months Standard 19 The time given to implement this standard is considered to be unreasonable. While we could easily comply with the requirement to ask whether an individual wants to receive telephone calls in Welsh, given the current low levels of Welsh language staff it would be difficult to comply with the requirement to conduct all future phone calls in Welsh. Like many of the standards time is needed to develop the Welsh language skills of the workforce and to put in place appropriate translation services. The cost implications of this Standard like many others will be great. Monitoring compliance will be an issue as currently calls are not monitored. Further, there is currently no central database whereby staff could record individual language choice and share this information freely between departments. We require more time to research and identify solutions and the implementation of arrangements for the recording of language preference that are in line with the General data Protection Act. Page 14 of 30 The health board encourages all staff to greet callers in Welsh however, if an exemption is not granted the health board would need a compliance/imposition date of at least 36-months. This time scale is required to ensure sufficient numbers of staff are able to converse confidently in Welsh. We note that our draft compliance notice states that: You must comply with standard 19 in every circumstance, except where: it is necessary for a member of staff who does not speak Welsh to provide a service on a specific subject matter; and no Welsh speaking member of staff is available to provide a service on that specific subject matter.

16 Standards 21, 22, 22A and 22CH The health board does not currently offer to conduct meetings that aren t open to the general public in Welsh. We work closely and hold many meetings with a wide range of external stakeholders in order to deliver our aims and objectives. Our principal partners are powys County Council, Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations, Welsh Government, health boards/trusts, police services. When we invite our partners, individual groups to meetings, we do not routinely ask them whether they wish to speak Welsh at the meeting as the health board does not employ translators. Any translation required would need to be contracted to external agencies and would incur a potential cost. Provision of Welsh language translation is also dependent on the availability of a translator. We have to book translators well in advance of for example our AGM, hence there could also be timeliness issues especially if a meeting needs to be arranged at short notice. The current procurement framework for Welsh language interpreters/translators, managed by Welsh Government, is very limited in how it can meet demand and supply for the provision of translation services. A simultaneous translator can charge upwards of 50 per hour, plus travel costs and the cost of hiring equipment e.g. up to 2 hours it would cost 100+ Given the numner of business meetings with partners /stakeholders per week the annual cost for interpretation will be substantial Our Standing Orders and Terms of Reference of our Board Committees includes reference to availability of Welsh language documents and translation services on request.- to date requests Currently the above would apply to most of our services and we hope that the Commissioner accepts that this is a Standard that we only have a chance of complying with, due to the above stipulations, The Health Board would like to request an exemption from standards 21 and 22A i.e. offering single or multiple meeting attendees the option to converse in Welsh as these standards are not reasonable or proportionate. If the exemption is not granted we request a variation to the standard in that it exempts business meetings with external organisations. We also request the reinstatement of Standard 22C in place of 22A If you have invited more than one person to a meeting and at least 30% have informed you that they wish to use the Welsh Language at the meeting, you must arrange for a simultaneous or consecutive translation service from Welsh to English to be available at the meeting. Should the Commissioner not be minded to accept our request above we request a longer time for compliance/impelmentation i.e. 24-months Page 15 of 30

17 Standards 23, 23A and 24 for documents in Welsh and translation services has been minimal. We request a variation to the standard in that it exempts business meetings with external organisations. If the exemption is not awarded, we need reasonable time to establish efficient, timely and cost effective business processes and budget provision for simultaneous interpretation in meetings. Another area of concern is a meeting which is attended by persons in multiple locations outside the host meeting room by means of teleconference, video conference etc. Should 10% of persons wish to use Welsh at the meeting, translation facilities would have to be provided at each location where a non Welsh speaker is attending. This would be logistically problematic to arrange, and it would also be very expensive. We therefore request a variation to be applied which exempts meetings which are attended by persons in other locations. Whenever possible the health board takes steps to ensure that individuals whose language choice is Welsh are fully supported while they are an inpatient. We consider language choice to be a key component of patient experience, quality and safety. The number of Welsh language speaking staff employed in certain of our hospital sites limits the level of the support we can provide. However, Certain of our Community Hospital wards provide a fully bilingual service as they are located in a mainly Welsh speaking part of Powys. The health board considers that the time given to fully comply with these standards to be unreasonable, a longer led in time is needed to ensure consistency across all services and sites. The health board requires time to re-develop procedures for recording in-patient language choice and to put appropriate systems in place to deal with them. The health board will need to assess service areas in terms of priority and implement these Page 16 of 30 The health board requests a compliance/imposition date of 36 months in order to allow these standards to be introduced incrementally starting with high priority areas in year 1, medium priority areas in year 2, and lower priority areas in year 3. We would be happy to share an implementation plan with the Welsh Language Commissioners Office.

18 Standard 33 standards gradually. We have already identified areas where we will focus to ensure compliance as soon as possible. These include mental health, dementia services, and speech and language services. There is a lot of activity locally and nationally in respect of the flagging of communication needs that will assist in the achievement of these standards. While wholeheartedly committed to the implementation of these Standards electronic systems and processes need further development and embedding. For example, Powys is an early implementer of the Welsh Community Care Information System (WCCIS) and this has the functionality to record a patient s preferred language built in to it. The health board needs to time to not only embed systems for the capture of Welsh language choice but also to put the systems and staff in place to ensure such needs are met. PTHB produces Patient Story videos that are not categorised as publicity or advertising. We believe that standard 33 does not apply to patient story videos. They do not fall under any definition of publicity or advertising, which would suggest there was a commercial element involved, which is clearly not the case. Colleagues in WAST have identified that: There appears to be some capacity to apply the following interpretations to patient stories, if we can define the patient s spoken words as text? PTHB does not produce the text, the patient does- The Welsh Language Standards (No. 7) Regulations 2018 PART 3 INTERPRETING THE STANDARDS 28 (1) A body is not required to translate into Welsh any text that it has not produced ( text A ). We request an exception to this standard, for example: See reference to Welsh Language (Wales) Measure Exception for broadcasting also; Videos / DVDs that feature non-welsh speaking participants due to the fact that no Welsh speakers were available and that an individual s experience/perception is unique to them and their image, voice and story is their own intellectual property. Page 17 of 30

19 (2) A body will not be treating the Welsh language less favourably if it does not translate text A into Welsh but see subparagraph (3). 51 Standards 45 and 46 (social media) do not apply to (a) documents to which a link is provided through social media, or to video and audio clips provided through social media (see standards 36 to 38 for specific provision in relation to documents, and standard 33 in relation to advertising material produced by a body); (b) Information presented by persons (other than the body) on a body s social media account (for example on a section for comments); or We could argue that a patient story is an oral presentation? Welsh Language (Wales) Measure Exception for broadcasting (1)This Measure (a)does not require, and (b)does not authorise a person to require, a person to comply with a standard if, and to the extent that, the standard relates to broadcasting. (2)In this section (a) broadcasting means the commissioning, production, scheduling, transmission or distribution of programmes (including advertisements, subtitles, continuity announcements and teletext), access services, interactivity, online content and other output of a similar nature for television, radio, the internet or other online or wireless platforms; Page 18 of 30

20 Also, there appears to be some capacity to apply the following interpretations to patient stories, if we can define the patient s spoken words as text? PTHB does not produce the text, the patient does- The Welsh Language Standards (No. 7) Regulations 2018 PART 3 INTERPRETING THE STANDARDS 28 (1) A body is not required to translate into Welsh any text that it has not produced ( text A ). (2) A body will not be treating the Welsh language less favourably if it does not translate text A into Welsh but see subparagraph (3). Patient experience videos are patients, service users, members of the public, sharing their experiences/expectations of our services. These videos are told by individuals from their own perspective about how it felt being a patient or using/accessing our services. They provide an opportunity to understand the impact our services/processes have had on people/patients and identify/learn lessons to improve as well as promote best practice. Stories, as defined in the 1000 Lives methodology for improvement is: A patient or someone close to them who has experienced excellent care or improvement in services Someone who has had an unsatisfactory experience of healthcare including an experience of physical or emotional harm A member of staff who has worked as part of a team working to implement patient service improvements Anyone who want to share ideas about good practice or new research findings Page 19 of 30

21 Each story is valid as it is the individuals healthcare experiences and collectively these stories are used to help us build a picture of what it is like as a service-user/patient and how we can improve the services provided. Standards 36 and 37 It is not always possible to find bilingual service users/patients. Where this is the case we could employ the use of subtitling only however voice-overs would not feasible as these stories, as a person s own experience/perception, is unique to them and their own intellectual property. This may be viewed as treating the Welsh language less favourably than the English language if so then we would not be able to produce patient experience stories as part of service improvement and learning as we would be restricted resulting in now videos being produced The health board s current Welsh Language Scheme requires forms available to members of the public to be bi-lingual. Staff will be reminded of this requirement. There are potentially 100s of forms and documents used across the health board that are for internal use or for the provision of information to partner organisations. We will need to undertake a full review to identify the types of documents and forms produced and the intended audiences. In order to do this properly we will need 24 months. We request a revised compliance/imposition date of 24-months to allow for a thorough review of forms and to allow clinicians to assess any associated clinical risks and provide advice on how best to develop bilingual forms that can be easily understood by all who need to use them. The health board would also like to request an exemption to be included for clinical forms and documents that need to be issued urgently without delay to reduce any negative impacts upon an individual s health and wellbeing. Also where there are no Welsh speaking staff within the department to interpret the forms as errors could result in a clinical risk. Page 20 of 30

22 Standards 39 and 43 Standard 45 Standards 50, 52 and 53 The introduction of a new NHS wide content management system by NWIS, will see a major overhaul of NHS Wales websites over the next two years, on a phased basis. On that basis, it is accepted that content should be available in both languages with equality of status over time This will necessitate the translation of all new content, current content not available bilingually and a new navigation. A large amont of work is needed and the impact on capacity and costs will be great. Social media communication, by its very nature, happens in real time and often in response to issues raised by a range of audiences. Social media is widely used by our Communications nd Engagement Team and is starting to be used more and more by our Workforce and OD team, as part of its recruitment provess. The Communication and Engagemnt Team often tweets in real time from live events, such as Board meetings, engagement events and the health board s AGM. Social media is also used to deliver emergency and urgent information to both staff and the public at times of high demand, for example during times of severe weather. The health board is currently pilioting mirrored social media feeds and is translating scheduled and pre-planned tweets and posts, Until such time as the Communication and Engagement team has a dedicated Welsh speaker within their team, real time provision of all social media content is difficult. To mitigate, the team continue to have access to translation facilities and are using the Microsoft translation app adopted by Welsh Government. As stated in our response to many of the Standards above currently very few staff have sufficient language skills for the health board to comply fully with this standard and provide a We request a revised compliance/imposition date of 24-months given the phased roll-out of the content management over the next 2 years. Should PTHB be part of the early phase of the roll-out we will be able to comply earlier but as dates are yet to be confirmed we wish to be circumspect in our response. The Health Board requests 24-months to implement this Standard in parallel with the new websites. It also requests an exemption for unscheduled tweets and posts from departmental accounts at live events and for social media issued in response to emergency situations. Given the staffing and training implications we request a compliance/imposition date of 24-months. Page 21 of 30

23 Standards 57,58 and 59 Standard 63 Welsh speaking reception service across all of our sites. We have receptions at each of our Community Hospital sites, and a Welsh Language Peer Review commissioned earlier this year highlighted a need for some focused work to be undertaken to address shortfalls in Welsh speaking reception areas. The Peer Review highlighted that where a PTHB site is located in a Welsh speaking area, such as Machynlleth or Ystradgynlais, bi-lingual reception services are available, while in areas such as Brecon and Bronllys there is limited Welsh language capacity. Our ability to comply with these standards in the future is wholly reliant on our ability to recruit Welsh speakers if / when vacancies arise or the willingness of current staff to learn Welsh. PTHB will continue to assess posts to identify those where Welsh is regarded as essential when posts become vacant, and to up-skill current employees in order to move towards a more sustainable Welsh service provision over time. The health board will work with the NWSSP to comply as far as practically possible, but there will financial resource implications for translation services and possible delays in the opening process if tenders were submitted in Welsh as translation would need to be carried out externally as the health board does not employ translators. We consider this standard to be disproportionate as the Health Board relies on external training providers to deliver accredited educational courses. While other training is delivered by members of staff or volunteers, for example induction. We do not have sufficient Welsh speakers to deliver courses in Welsh on a specific subject matter. We request a variation to the standard which applies the principle established in standard 19 to standard 63. Should the variation not be granted we would need to provide Page 22 of 30 In order to assess the full financial impact of complying with this standard and in order to allow sufficient time to set up monitoring systems for PTHB contracts we request an compliance/imposition date of 12 months We request a variation to the standard as follows: You must comply with standard 63 in every circumstance, except where no Welsh speaking member of staff is available to provide training on that specific subject matter. However, supporting course material must to be provided in Welsh. We request a longer compliance/imposition day, i.e. 18 months

24 Standards 66 and 68 simultaneous translation from English to Welsh as an alternative for those wishing to receive the course in Welsh. This would incur additional costs which in our opinion would be disproportionate to the benefits of providing simultaneous translation from English into Welsh. We would need sufficient time to secure funding for translation of materials and simultaneous translation, and we anticipate that this would take at least 18 months. The health board considers the Primary Care Standards to be more reasonable than the original draft Standards, yet they still have resource implications in terms of translation costs and training. We need to undertake a full assessment of need and time will be needed to put mechanisms in place to address this identified need. We request that the Commissioner extends the compliance/imposition date to 18- months. Standards 78 and 79 Standards 80, 81 and 82 [note 12 months for compliance with 80 and 81] The time given to comply with these standards is unreasonable as it would be helpful for them to be develop in consultation with other health boards. Further, any amendments to primary care contracts deemed necessary would need to be negotiated and agreed at a national level. Standards 80 and 81 have implications in terms of translation services and resources. There will need to discussion and consultation at an all-wales level The policies listed under Standard 82 are developed and agreed on an all Wales basis through a partnership board of Heads of Workforce and ODs in NHS Organisations and will require discussion and agreement of a way forward on an all Wales basis. NHS Employers have indicated that these will be translated, however, timescales will be affected due to volume of policies requiring translation. Policies will be prioritised. Internally, support will be required to translate policies We request that the Commissioner extends the compliance/imposition date to 18- months. We request that the Commissioner extends the compliance/imposition date to 24- months because discussion and agreement is needed at an all Wales level. Page 23 of 30

25 Standard 83 to 88 Standard 91 Standards 97 and 98 Due to the complexities around this area, we would like to request additional time to meet the requirements of these standards. Whilst the translation of standard letters and the policy should be relatively straight forward, the reality of conducting meetings and hearings through the medium of welsh, as well as translating complex letters and correspondence, within very strict timescales will need to be managed to ensure we have robust translation services to hand, who can meet these timescales. We would need sufficient time to secure funding for simultaneous translation and to put appropriate arrangements, procedures training and guidance in place, The organisation s intranet is not currently bilingual as internal communication platforms were not covered by the previous Welsh Language Act and the health board st Welsh Language Scheme. Given the technical nature of many of the documents hosted on the Intranet (including clinical information), translation of such information would deliver limited benefit and may, in fact, increase risk. On that basis, and recognising the need for proportionality in application of the standards, an exemption is requested. At present it is not currently possible to offer training in Welsh in respect of the subject areas covered by these Standards. Much of the training provided to employees is delivered by PTHB staff (subject matter experts) and many of these do not speak Welsh. Therefore, it would not be possible to deliver certain courses in Welsh. Our only option would be to provide simultaneous We request that the Commissioner extends the compliance/imposition date to 18- months. We respectfully request an exemption to this Standard. If an exception is not grant we request a lead in time of 24 months. We request that the Commissioner extends the compliance/imposition date to 18- months to enable engagement with translation services and re-design any training materials. We also request a variation to this standard as follows: Page 24 of 30

26 Standards 99, 100, 101, 102 Standards 106 to 109 translation from English into Welsh which involves additional cost. In order to achieve the Standards we would need to: Access an appropriately skilled translator to translate all training materials Access a suitably skilled Welsh translator to be part of training/development sessions as needed Time is needed to undertake a needs analysis and develop a clearly thought through approach to the provision of training wil be needed. The health board currently provides various levels of training, but the number of staff that can currently access face to face training is limited due to cost and access to welsh language tutors (such training includes intensive training). Staff can also access e- learning. To comply with these Standards fully and consistently we need to research and develop a training programme, identifying a suitable trainer, arranging a training schedule and suitable training venues. The health board does not currently have an in-house tutor and so there will be additional costs and time to identify funding is needed. Information provided by NWSSP regarding recruitment The NWSSP uses the NHS Jobs website to advertise vacant posts on NHS Jobs. The NWSSP uses the TRAC Recruitment Management System to facilitate the recruitment process for recruiting managers within NWSSP. The system runs alongside NHS Jobs in managing applications made, sends notifications to recruiting managers and applicants/candidates and manages the You must comply with standard 97 in every circumstance, except where: courses are delivered by the body s own staff and they do not speak Welsh where courses are delivered by external providers and they do not speak Welsh We request that the Commissioner extends the compliance/imposition date to 24- months. We request that the Commissioner extends the compliance/imposition date to 24- months. Page 25 of 30