Abstract
Swansea is one of oldest cities by population in the UK (more than 1 in 5 people over 65) leading to an increasing number of frail patients and has a high prevalence of Welsh speakers in the over 65 age group 12% of Swansea Bay employees identify as speaking Welsh.
The Welsh language act awarded equal status to both English and Welsh, encouraging public bodies to publish official documents bilingually.As part of our work in developing frailty screening for elective surgical patients we use the clinical frailty score (CFS) and noted there was not a Welsh language version available. As we are hoping to progress to patients completing the score independently it was clear this was important.
Method
The Bayways Frailty alliance created a version of the CFS in Welsh which followed the same format, was visually appealing and clinically correct. We showed this to both Welsh speaking clinicians of various specialities and allied health professionals; we also shared it with Welsh speaking members of the public who were not clinicians to gain feedback.
Finally we gained approval from Dr Rookwood and his team for this official translation.
Results
There was widespread support for this from both clinicians and non-clinical members of the public. They felt the Welsh was easy to understand and professional. Clinical staff felt empowered that a part of their culture was now part of the workplace.
Conclusion
This valuable piece of work will now be made widely available and encourages changes such as this going forward in keeping with the Welsh Government policies. Alongside that the widespread positive feedback from both clinical staff and patients speaks for itself.