# New South Wales makes engaging a certified health care interpreter mandatory whenever communication is essential, and tells staff not to use machine translation for clinical information

Page: https://flyvolo.ai/en/changes/ev-20171219-interpreter-12
Date: 2017-12-19 · Stage: Constraint
Can this record move a task judgement? yes
Occupation: https://flyvolo.ai/en/careers/interpreter

## Scope

New South Wales, Australia. The health ministry's policy directive, compliance with which is mandatory for NSW Health and a condition of subsidy, says health care interpreters are to be engaged in all health care situations where communication is essential for patients who are not fluent in English, including Deaf people, and that staff should not use apps or online machine translation such as Google Translate for clinical or official health information because current evidence indicates they are not sufficiently accurate; it defines a health care interpreter as a person accredited or certified by NAATI. One public health system's directive, under review since June 2026; it does not measure compliance or test machine interpreting.

## Source

- NSW Ministry of Health — Policy Directive PD2017_044, Interpreters: Standard Procedures for Working with Health Care Interpreters (published 19 December 2017) — https://www1.health.nsw.gov.au/PDS/ActivePDSDocuments/PD2017_044.pdf (primary source)

## What this means

In a large public health system, interpreting for patients is required to be done by a certified person, not a translation app.

## What it does not show yet

One system's directive; it does not show how often it is followed or how machine interpreting performs.

## How to verify it yourself

Open NSW Health Policy Directive PD2017_044 and find "Health care interpreters are to be engaged in all health care situations".


More: https://flyvolo.ai/llms.txt