The Black Country Pathfinder 14–19 Networks for Excellence has been given a combined Award for two projects: Essential British Sign Language for Successful Healthcare and Panjabi Language Learning within a Nursing Foundation Apprenticeship. Both are clear examples of the real difference language skills can make to people’s lives.

Essential to the project is the collaboration of the training providers with the language specialists, resulting in training tailored to the needs of healthcare workers. In addition to improved language skills and the ability to understand their patients, trainees have greater self-confidence and feel they are able to provide a higher level of healthcare with language skills relevant to their workplace.

In the Panjabi model, cadet nurses engage in a ten-week course; at the outset they negotiate the sort of things they will need to say and understand in their daily work, and this influences their curriculum. At the end of the course the nurses prepare aide-mémoire cards to carry around the wards with them, helping them communicate in Panjabi, the main language spoken by patients in the area. The BSL project has produced a CD-ROM which contains photo and video presentations of healthcare-related language, along with practice and test materials.