Our Advocacy and Interpreting Service offers a free and confidential service aimed at ensuring everyone in Tower Hamlets has equal access to primary healthcare through the provision of bilingual advocacy, interpreting, translation, and telephone interpreting services. The team consists of trained health advocates, all of whom have tested experience and awareness of barriers that affect good access to health care.
To emphasise the excellent work of the team, St Paul’s Way Medical Centre’s clinicians have given outstanding feedback to the Advocacy and Interpreting Team’s very own Health Advocate, Mariyam Kaddir.
St Paul’s Way Medical Centre GP, Dr Laurel Grosvenor shared the message: “Mariyam is one of the most experienced advocates I have had the pleasure to work with. She has over 20 years of knowledge of our patients and families and is often able to tell us about family structures, social circumstances, and background information that is essential to diagnosis. With St Paul’s Way being a large teaching practice, this continuity is essential for patient safety. She has often been able to provide key information in supporting vulnerable adults and children’s safeguarding. She can alert us to subtle changes in language and behaviour that could mean the difference in the assessment of mental health and psychosis. She can correct our junior team members and students and assist extensively with their training.
Mariyam does not just translate but advocates. She books follow up appointments. She is familiar with the practice structures, recall and QOF targets and her experience ensures that patients are booked for follow up appropriately without waste. She is one of the reasons we can meet our local targets.
Her presence in consultations improves our efficiency. She can share the necessary health promotion information without prompting and makes our telephone consultations faster.
She is excellent at managing fluctuating demand between multiple clinicians and communicates between team members flawlessly so that we know when an advocate is available. This allows our clinics to run smoothly.
I can think of three or four recent consultations when I have not felt confident of the GPCG advocates skills and translation and have had to rebook complex or sensitive cases with Mariyam.
Her absence and amalgamation into a generalised advocacy system would be a great loss to our surgery and our patients.”
