East Sussex Division breaking the language barrier

East Sussex Division are the first police division in the Force to go multi-lingual with two new Language Line Handsets.

The language line phone is a quality dual-handset which enables both the officer and non English speaking member of the public to connect to one of over 150 Language Line Interpreters within seconds, all day, every day. Both parties have a personal handset and sensitive information can be shared confidentially without having to use the speakerphone.

Senior PNSO (Police Neighbourhood Support Officer) Emma Stepney has secured two of the newly launched handsets for East Sussex Division, located within the Eastbourne and Hastings front offices.

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Emma said: "The new handsets will enable the non English person to speak into one handset to an interpreter whilst the PNSO listens on the other and can pose questions via the interpreter. This means the information being reported can be quickly established and transcribed onto a serial. Previously this has proved to be a time consuming task as the PNSO has not been able to speak to direct to language line and the handset had to be passed between two people."

She added, "This new initiative addresses the citizen focus element of the Local Policing Plan and offers a more professional level of customer service to our diverse community. I have no doubt that the handset will be fully utilised when Op Columbus (Force operation dealing with Foreign Students) commences for 2007."

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