What problem is this innovation solving?
The NHS strives to provide inclusive care and language barriers remain a critical challenge. During 2024/25, the NHS spent approximately £64 million per year on translation and interpreting services. Recent data shows total expenditure of around £240 million over five years, with costs rising due to increased demand from a linguistically diverse population across NHS trusts in England.
Pocketalk’s AI-powered handheld translation device is improving communication in healthcare settings across the UK and Europe by supporting both routine and emergency care. Designed for inclusivity and efficiency, it helps reduce language barriers, tackle health inequalities, and enhance equitable care for multilingual communities and the professionals who serve them. Pocketalk is suitable for a variety of healthcare scenarios and environments, including primary care, maternity appointments or routine check-ups.
What we did
HIW worked collaboratively with Scale Innovation and Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust to support the adoption and integration of Pocketalk into care pathways. Maternity and Neonatal Services at Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust support many women for whom English is not a first language, creating barriers to timely and safe care. Pre‑arranging translators is not always possible, and using family members is not best practice or cost‑effective. Pocketalk bridges this gap by enabling real‑time communication at the point of care through its two‑way, multi‑sensory translation device, with access to 90+ languages and improving communication and quality of care. HIW helped staff to navigate governance arrangements, obtain IT support, develop new processes and protocols and put in place training for staff to enable successful implementation.
- Scale Innovation has provided ongoing support including staff training and education, alongside aftercare for Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust.
- Following the implementation, the Maternity and Neonatal team at Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust successfully applied to our real-world evaluation competition, securing them a fully National Institute of Health Research funded independent evaluation of the innovation in a primary care setting; read the report.
- Scale Innovation attended Health Innovation Wessex four-day accelerator ‘Health Innovation Programme’ which includes implementation sessions in Spring 2024.
- HIW supported implementation of 10 Pocketalk devices in Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust’s maternity settings.
- As a result of our support, the local maternity and neonatal system purchased 300 devices for use across four acute trusts in Hampshire and Isle of Wight.
- Scale Innovation have intentions and contracts to deploy the device in several other services across the NHS, mostly maternity but other use cases are also being explored.
Impact of Innovation
The evaluation assessed how Pocketalk was experienced by staff and service users, and how effectively it supported communication in maternity care. Drawing on 18 staff feedback forms, six service user feedback forms, six staff interviews and three test case scenarios (November 2025–January 2026), the findings provide clear practical insight despite the smaller than anticipated sample size.
Pocketalk was widely described as convenient, intuitive and immediately accessible, enabling staff to communicate directly with women without delay. Through staff interviews, staff reported increased confidence that their explanations and questions were understood, helping to reduce reliance on informal interpretation and improving the flow of interactions. While occasional mistranslations occurred and some dialects were not supported, the device was generally accurate for straightforward, non-complex conversations and functioned as a reliable communication aid in routine care.
Importantly, staff felt the device supported and improved communication, promoted greater equity of care, and enhanced overall patient experience. There was clear appetite to extend its use into more complex clinical discussions, reflecting confidence in its potential.
Application of Pocketalk in a GP setting
In 2024, Health Innovation Wessex was part of a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) grant partners submission working with the Living Well Partnership in Southampton, who trialled Pocketalk across eight GP surgeries serving over 45,000 patients speaking more than 70 languages. The aim was to improve the primary care experience for non‑English‑speaking patients. Feedback was highly positive: 100% of users said they would use Pocketalk again, 93% found it user‑friendly, and 83% preferred it over traditional telephone interpreters. Over five months, the pilot supported 100 sessions, delivering 12 hours of interpretation across 18 languages in three primary care settings.
Overall, Pocketalk was viewed as a practical, low-burden intervention that improved communication efficiency and supported more inclusive, person-centred care. The current impact includes successful implementation of Pocketalk within a local maternity unit, with clear readiness and ambition to scale its use across the wider Trust – marking a meaningful step towards safer, more equitable and more responsive services. Moving forwards, anticipated impact would expect to show reduced communication barriers, an increase in inclusion, patient benefit and efficiencies in staff workflow at scale.
Health and Care System Success
The introduction of Pocketalk is already demonstrating clear benefits for patients, enabling them to communicate more confidently—whether ordering meals, expressing pain, or understanding essential conversations with healthcare professionals.
Beyond enhancing individual experiences, the technology responds to a wider systemic need for scalable, on‑demand language support. Unlike traditional interpretation models, Pocketalk offers a cost‑effective, accessible, and operationally efficient solution that can be embedded seamlessly into routine care. By integrating these devices, the Trust is taking a meaningful step toward safer, more equitable maternity services.