Why interpreting innovations fail: understanding persistent inadequacies in maternity language services – Dr. Li Li (University of Stirling)

Event details

Despite decades of policy attention and growing evidence of harm, interpreting services in UK maternity care continue to be characterised by persistent inadequacies in access, quality, and sustainability. In recent years, video-mediated interpreting (VMI) has been promoted as a promising solution to these challenges. Yet in practice, such innovations are often poorly adopted and deliver limited improvement.

Drawing on a multi-year, transformative mixed-methods study of maternity interpreting services in the UK, this talk examines why persistent service inadequacies endure despite repeated attempts at innovation. Rather than approaching these challenges as isolated problems, the talk treats interpreting provision as a complex system in which user agency, workforce sustainability, technological infrastructure, and institutional decision-making are tightly interconnected.

Using VMI in maternity care as a case study, the talk builds on earlier work on the “vicious circle” of interpreting service provision to explore how well-intentioned innovations become entangled in self-reinforcing system dynamics. It reflects in particular on how apparently practical decisions about interpreting modalities can conceal significant complexity, how methodological choices shape what becomes visible in research, and what a systems perspective offers for thinking about future interventions in interpreting and translation studies.

By reframing maternity interpreting as a systemic rather than a purely technical challenge, the talk invites discussion about why familiar solutions continue to fall short and how research and policy might better account for complexity in interpreting-mediated healthcare.