Translations for the NHS and GP registration

Registering with a GP: nothing to translate

The NHS makes registration easy. Its guidance on registering with a GP surgery says that a practice cannot refuse you because you have no proof of address, no immigration status document, no identification and no NHS number, and that you do not need any of these to register. So the Turkish passport, the nüfus cüzdanı or the tenancy agreement you were about to have translated can stay in the drawer. The surgery may ask for a name and date of birth, and that is all. Hospital care that is free at the point of use for ordinary residents is not gated by translated documents either; where the Overseas Visitors team asks for evidence of residence it is UK evidence, such as a tenancy or an eVisa share code, not Turkish paperwork.

Where translation does matter

The moment you sit in front of a GP with a condition that was diagnosed and treated in Türkiye, the clinical record matters. A discharge summary (epikriz) describes what was found and done; a medical board report (sağlık kurulu or heyet raporu) sets out a disability and its percentage; a medication report (ilaç raporu) justifies a repeat prescription; test results and imaging reports establish a baseline. A GP cannot act on a document in Turkish, and a hospital consultant will not read it. The same applies to a child’s vaccination card (aşı kartı), which the practice nurse or health visitor uses to place the child on the UK schedule, and which schools ask about at admission. Maternity notes from a pregnancy that began in Türkiye, fertility records and mental health reports all fall in the same category.

Turkish documents we translate for the NHS

• Discharge summaries and medical board reports.
• Prescriptions and medication reports, including controlled-drug reports.
• Vaccination records from the aşı kartı or e-Nabız.
• Laboratory results, radiology and pathology reports.
• Disability reports for referrals, blue badges and school support.

What goes wrong with medical records

• Drug names are left as Turkish brands. A UK prescriber needs the active ingredient; we give the brand as printed and the international non-proprietary name in brackets.
• Units are converted. Turkish laboratories report glucose in mg/dL, UK laboratories in mmol/L; we keep the original unit and flag it, because converting clinical values is a clinician’s job.
• Abbreviations are guessed. Turkish reports are dense with them (AKŞ, TİT, EKO); a medical translator expands each one once.
• Handwritten notes and stamps are skipped, and the signing physician’s specialty is lost with them.
• Vaccine names are transliterated instead of matched to the international name, so the nurse cannot map KKK to MMR or DaBT-İPA-Hib to the UK combined vaccine.

How we prepare records for the NHS

Medical translators handle these documents and a second reader with a clinical background checks drug names, doses, values and dates. Patient identifiers, hospital names and the physician’s details are kept exactly. Each page carries our certification statement, stamp and signature, although GP practices rarely require certification for clinical use; we include it at no extra cost because the same report may later go to the DWP, an insurer or a school. Delivery is by PDF, which practices accept by e-mail or through their online forms; a paper copy by UK Special Delivery is £8. A discharge summary is usually 2–4 pages (£20–40), a heyet raporu 1–3 pages, a vaccination card 1–2 pages (£10–20). Turnaround is 1–2 working days, and prescription and medication reports are done the same day when sent before 11:00 UK time. No UK VAT is charged. For records going the other way, into Turkish for a hospital or the askerlik office in Türkiye, see UK medical reports translated into Turkish. Our guide to translating Turkish medical records for the NHS lists what to bring to a first appointment.