Residents by main language, Stoke-on-Trent, Census 2021
ONS Census 2021, TS024, Stoke-on-Trent local authority (E06000021), usual residents aged three and over.
Face to face, by telephone or by video
Interpreters in Stoke-on-Trent
For more than 20 years, courts, hospitals and council services have booked their interpreters through LITS, in more than 300 languages. Whoever you're booking for, the part that matters is the appointment itself, not the organising around it, and the organising is what we take off your hands. Your interpreter's name reaches you before the appointment, and everything from your booking reaches them: the address, the time and what kind of appointment it is. So whether it's a hearing at the Combined Court in Hanley or an assessment at Harplands Hospital, the person who arrives already knows the job, and your attention can stay on the person you're there for.
We can have an interpreter with you in person anywhere in Stoke-on-Trent, or on the line by telephone or video. Send your enquiry any time between 9am and midnight, seven days a week, and you will have a quote back generally within the hour.
Court interpreting is everyday work for us
Our interpreters are regularly in UK courts and tribunals: the Royal Courts of Justice in London, the District Registry of the High Court in Manchester, and the Combined Court on Bethesda Street in Stoke-on-Trent among them. We work with NRPSI-registered interpreters, and LITS is an ATC Accredited Member – background checked by the Association of Translation Companies and bound by its Code of Professional Conduct.
Our interpreters hold enhanced DBS certification, and where an assignment requires it, Home Office Counter Terrorist Check or police vetting to NPPV3.
What a barrister said about our Urdu interpreting
"A tremendous help over three long days."
Ben D. (Oxon), Barrister at Law · Urdu interpreting
Booking an interpreter in Stoke-on-Trent takes three steps
Send us the appointment details. Which language, the date, when it starts and roughly how long it will take, the venue’s full address and the kind of appointment. Tell us too if it’s Legal Aid funded, and whether you want the interpreter there in person or on a telephone or video call.
Your quote comes back. Quotes generally within the hour, 9am-midnight, 7 days a week.
We handle the arrangements. You’ll have the interpreter’s name before the appointment, and they’ll have the details from your booking, so the basics of the appointment don’t have to come from you on the day.
Someone with you at the venue, wherever it is in the city.
For calls with a client or a patient, booked through the same form.
The interpreter joins your own Teams or Zoom meeting from the link you send us, so there's nothing new to set up.
Choose sign language as the type of interpreter when you book.
Should the interpreter we’ve booked be unable to attend, we’ll arrange someone else. Worked with one of our interpreters before and want them again? Name them when you book: for many languages we keep standing arrangements with the same interpreters.
Interpreting at the Combined Court in Hanley, and beyond the city
The Combined Court on Bethesda Street in Hanley is the only court the GOV.UK finder lists in the city, and one address serves the Crown Court, the county court and the family court. An interpreter who knows only the building could prepare for a criminal trial and walk into a family hearing, so we send the type of hearing with the address.
Plenty of Stoke-on-Trent cases never reach Bethesda Street. There’s no magistrates’ court in the city: the nearest, which GOV.UK also lists for employment claims and benefit appeals, is the North Staffordshire Justice Centre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, a different borough, and its postal address is in Stafford, a third town. Immigration and asylum appeals have no venue in the city at all; the nearest listed are in Manchester and Birmingham. A booking copied from a letterhead, or one that just says “Stoke court”, can put an interpreter in the wrong town while the hearing starts without them.
So the booking comes from your hearing notice: its venue, whether you’ll be in the courtroom or on a video link, and the kind of hearing, all with the interpreter ahead of the hearing. Send us the notice details once, and nobody has to tell the interpreter on the day which town to be in.
For a court hearing where the interpreter is yours to arrange, conferences with counsel and the statement-taking beforehand, we provide qualified interpreters, NRPSI-registered or members of ITI. Tribunals are different: you request the hearing interpreter from the tribunal, and at a benefit appeal you can’t use your own during the hearing, so in a tribunal case ours is booked for the meetings and the statement. Who books the interpreter, the court or your side? Our guide to booking your own court interpreter sets out where that responsibility sits.
Hospital and mental health interpreting, from Royal Stoke to Harplands
University Hospitals of North Midlands runs the Royal Stoke University Hospital on Newcastle Road and County Hospital in Stafford as well, so a letter headed with the trust’s name doesn’t tell you which town the appointment is in. Mental health care comes from a second trust. North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare runs Harplands Hospital on Hilton Road and the Darwin Centre for young people in Penkhull, and its liaison team works inside the Royal Stoke itself, so a mental health assessment on a Royal Stoke ward can be that trust’s appointment, not the acute trust’s. Booked under the wrong trust or the wrong site, an interpreter ends up at a reception that isn’t expecting them, while the clinician and the patient wait.
So the trust, the unit or team and the full address go from your appointment letter onto the booking, and the interpreter has all three ahead of the appointment. The letter does the explaining, so you don’t have to, and your interpreter walks in knowing whether it’s an outpatient clinic or a mental health assessment.
What a clinical psychologist said about our Urdu interpreter
"Pleasure to work with. Very skilled professional, who also took care to put the client at ease."
Dr Karen Q., Clinical Psychologist · Urdu interpreting
Got the date and the address? Send them with the language and we'll quote.
Book an interpreterAsylum and police interview interpreting in Stoke-on-Trent
Stoke-on-Trent is one of the places the Home Office houses people while their asylum claims are decided. We provide Kurdish, Arabic, Farsi and Pashto interpreters for the solicitor appointments and GP registrations that come with a claim, and each one is booked to the address on its own letter, so the interpreter is sent to that appointment rather than the last one you booked.
A police interview is booked separately. Staffordshire Police’s Northern Area Custody Facility is in Etruria: not the court in Hanley, and not Longton, the city’s public police station. Ahead of a PACE interview at Etruria, the interpreter already has the facility’s name and the type of interview, and holds NPPV3 police vetting where the assignment requires it. Whoever makes the booking, that’s one less thing to chase at the custody desk.
Book once, and leave the arrangements to us
Send us the language, the date and the address of the appointment. We’ll come back with a price, and once you say yes, the interpreter gets the details from your booking, so on the day your attention goes to the person you’re supporting, not to the arrangements. Quotes generally within the hour, 9am to midnight, seven days a week. Rather talk it through first? Ring us on 01254 674514.
If the same case needs a document translated, a witness statement or a foreign certificate for instance, our certified translation service sets out what you get, and our birth certificate translation page gives the price for that document. Sending documents to the register office or a university instead? See certified translation in Stoke-on-Trent. For an appointment somewhere other than Stoke-on-Trent, see the other places we cover.