People search for “translate my medical records” for very different reasons, and the right answer depends almost entirely on who is going to read the translation.
- An official body, such as the Home Office deciding a visa application.
- A doctor: a new GP here, or a clinic overseas.
- You, or family, trying to understand what a letter actually says.
Those three need three different things, and paying for the wrong one is common. A certified translation of a long hospital file takes time and costs money. A translation in an app is quick, and will not meet the Home Office’s rules. This guide sorts out which is which.
Disclosure
I am a doctor, and I founded exora, a personal health record app that can show your record in another language for reading. It appears once, near the end, and I am explicit there about what it is not.
When you need a translation at all
The usual situations:
- Applying for a UK visa, where medical evidence from another country has to reach the Home Office in English.
- Moving to the UK and registering with a GP, with years of records in another language.
- Moving abroad, or having treatment abroad. A surgeon or clinic overseas asks for your NHS letters and results before they will see you.
- An insurer, here or abroad, that wants your history in its own language.
- A parent or relative whose English is not strong enough for the details of a clinic letter.
The first question in every case is the same: is the reader an official body with rules about translations, or a person who just needs to understand?
Who certifies translators in the UK? Nobody, officially
Many countries have sworn translators appointed by a court or a ministry. The UK does not. The joint guidance of the three main professional bodies says plainly that the sworn translator “does not exist in the UK”, and that no government-regulated certification system exists. The Institute of Translation and Interpreting puts it more briefly: the situation in the UK is unregulated.
What exists instead is professional membership. Three bodies matter:
- The Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL), for individual linguists.
- The Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI), also for individuals.
- The Association of Translation Companies (ATC), for translation companies.
Together they publish Certified Translation: Getting It Right, which each of them endorses. It recommends using a translator or company with a clear affiliation to one of these bodies, and points to their public registers: the CIOL Find-a-Translator directory, the ITI Directory and the ATC member directory. The ITI notes that official organisations frequently stipulate a translator from a professional body such as ITI or CIOL, even though no law requires it.
What “certified translation” means in practice
In the UK, a certified translation is a translation with a signed statement from the translator that it is accurate. GOV.UK’s own guidance on certifying a document says that for a document not written in English or Welsh, you ask the translator to confirm in writing on the translation:
- that it is a “true and accurate translation of the original document”
- the date of the translation
- their full name and contact details
The CIOL guidance and the joint guidance say the same, and add that a translation company may sign through a representative.
Two things that are often confused with it:
- A notarised translation. The translator signs in front of a notary. The joint guidance is careful about what that proves: a notary or solicitor certifies the translator’s signature, not the translation, because they cannot attest that it is “true to the original”.
- A legalised (apostilled) document. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Legalisation Office checks a signature, stamp or seal and attaches an apostille. It can legalise certain official UK documents, including a medical certificate signed by a registered doctor, but not documents issued outside the UK. A receiving country may ask for this; most UK uses do not.
Because there is no single standard, the joint guidance’s most useful sentence is its advice to get clear instructions on certification, stamps and seals from the organisation that asked for the translation. Do that before you pay anyone.
Visas and immigration: what the Home Office accepts
The rule is in the Immigration Rules themselves, at paragraph 39B of Part 1 (last updated 29 October 2026). Where a document the Rules require (a “specified document”) is not in English or Welsh, you must provide:
- the original-language version, and
- a full translation that can be independently verified by the person deciding your application.
The translation must be dated and include:
- confirmation that it is an accurate translation of the original document
- the full name and signature of the translator, or of an authorised official of the translation company
- the translator’s or company’s contact details
If you are applying for leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain, there is one more requirement: certification by a qualified translator, with details of the translator’s or company’s credentials.
Three practical points follow from the wording.
- “Full” means full. A summary of a twenty-page hospital file is not a full translation of it. If you only need one report, ask whether that one report is enough, rather than translating everything.
- The original travels with the translation. The rule asks for both, so the caseworker can check one against the other. Never send a translation on its own.
- It has consequences. The same paragraph says that if a specified document is not provided, you do not meet the requirement it was meant to evidence. A medical report the Home Office cannot use is worse than one you never paid for.
The Rules do not, in that paragraph, say who may or may not do the translating. Given the stakes, a professional translator who will put their name, contact details and credentials on it is the safe choice. Your visa route’s own guidance may add requirements, so read the guidance for the exact application you are making.
Moving to the UK: registering with a GP
The good news first. Everyone in England can register with a GP surgery for free, and you do not need ID, proof of address or proof of immigration status. NHS England’s guide for patients, You and your general practice (published October 2026), says the same, and that a practice cannot refuse to register you because of your immigration status.
Your records from abroad will not follow you automatically. Bring copies of what matters most: a summary of conditions and operations, your current medicines and doses, allergies, vaccinations, and recent results and specialist letters. Our guide to moving countries with your medical records covers what to request before you leave.
Do you have to pay to translate them first? NHS England’s guidance for commissioners on interpreting and translation in primary care addresses this directly. Where patients register with a practice holding health documents in other languages, these “should be translated into English as soon as possible where there is an identified clinical need”, and kept in the record in both languages where that is needed. The same guidance says documents translated for patients should be done by competent, trained translators, not by practice staff.
Note the words “clinical need”. That is guidance for the NHS in England, not a promise that every page will be translated. A GP may only need the discharge summary from your heart operation, not your childhood vaccination book. So ask the practice what they would like, before you pay for anything. And keep the originals: they are the record.
At the GP: you need an interpreter, not a document
A lot of searches for “translate medical records” are really about a conversation. Someone needs to understand their GP, or explain their history to one. A written translation is the wrong tool for that. An interpreter is the right one.
In England, NHS England’s patient guide says that if you do not speak English, you can ask for interpretation services in your preferred language when you make an appointment. The commissioners’ guidance goes further: interpretation and translation should be provided free at the point of delivery, and patients should not be asked to pay for interpreting or to bring their own interpreter. It adds that an appointment with an interpreter typically needs more time, so say you need one, and in which language, when you book.
Who arranges it? Integrated care boards are responsible for making sure these services are available in primary care, so the practice books the interpreter, not you. That guidance dates from 2018 (updated 2019) and has not been replaced; NHS England’s 2025 improvement framework supplements it and says it should be used alongside it. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own services, so ask your practice there.
Please do not rely on a child or a relative to interpret. The commissioners’ guidance says reliance on family or friends is strongly discouraged, and that using anyone under 16 is not acceptable except when immediate treatment is needed. The improvement framework explains why: informal interpreters and translation apps increase the risk of medical errors, and a patient may be unable to disclose abuse when a family member is interpreting.
The commissioners’ guidance also says patients should be able to ask for a translation of their Summary Care Record into their preferred language, at no extra cost beyond the standard cost of accessing their record.
Overseas treatment and insurance
Here the reader is outside the NHS, and the receiving organisation sets its own rules. A hospital in Lisbon may be happy with your English letters. A government or insurer abroad may want a translator certified in their own country, or a translation legalised with an apostille. Ask, in writing, exactly which documents they need and in what form, before you pay twice.
Two things worth knowing first. You can get copies of your NHS records with a subject access request under the UK GDPR, which is usually free; our UK records guide walks through it. But a GP may charge for private work such as completing forms for insurance purposes or writing letters requested by third parties, so a records copy and an insurer’s report are not the same request.
Where machine translation helps, and where it does not
NHS England’s own improvement framework is a fair guide here. It notes that translation apps are “convenient, familiar and timely”, and that they carry risks, particularly for accuracy and patient safety. It calls for a national policy briefing on using these tools safely, with medication instructions singled out as a sensitive task.
For anything official, machine translation is simply not an option: it cannot sign a statement, give contact details or list credentials, which is what the Home Office asks for. But there is a third reader, who just needs to understand. Your mum reading her own discharge summary. A sister in Madrid helping decide about an operation. A doctor abroad who reads English slowly and would rather not guess at “bd prn”.
None of them needs a certificate. They need the content in their language, accurately, and a way to check it. A good translation for reading has three properties:
- Numbers must survive. A dose, a date or a result changed in translation is the error that hurts people.
- Medical names should be the real names, not a literal word-for-word rendering.
- The original should travel with it, one tap or one page away, so anyone who doubts a line can check. It is the same principle the Home Office applies, for the same reason.
Pasting a whole medical record into a general translation website handles none of those reliably, and it means handing your health information to a service that was never built to hold it.
Where exora fits, and where it does not
exora is a personal health record app, and it is for the third reader. You upload documents, such as PDFs, photos or scans, and exora reads them for you, with a reading system built for medical records. It builds one record from them, and that record reads in English, Spanish, French, Italian or Portuguese. Change the language and your conditions, medicines and allergies change with it, and so do many sentences, once a translation has been checked. Visit summaries and some medicine explanations stay in English for now. Tap “Original wording” and the document’s own words are underneath. exora is free to start, with an optional membership.
Every sentence translation is checked a second time and compared number by number with the original. One that changes a number is never shown; you see the original wording instead. A doctor you share your record with can choose their own language in the viewer; names switch, and longer sentences stay as written for now. If you write to the chat in Spanish, it explains your record in Spanish. It does not translate the document you uploaded, which stays exactly as it was. The translation feature page has the details.
Where it does not help, plainly:
- It is not a certified translation. Nothing exora produces will satisfy the Home Office, a court, an insurer or anyone else that asks for one. For those, use a translator from a professional body. For a GP appointment, ask the practice for an interpreter.
- It can misread. The reading and translating are automated, so check anything that matters against the original. That is why the original is always one tap away.
- No NHS connection. exora has no link to the NHS App, your GP’s system or any NHS service, and no NHS approval or UK health-data certification.
- Your data is stored in Sydney, Australia, outside the UK. How we handle it is on our security page; read it before you upload anything.
- It is not medical advice. It organises and explains your information. It does not diagnose or tell you what to do.
The short version
Work out who will read the translation. The Home Office wants the original plus a full, dated translation with the translator’s confirmation, name, signature and contact details, and credentials too for leave to remain. Anyone else official sets its own rules, so ask them first; a translator registered with CIOL, ITI or an ATC company is the usual answer. A conversation with your GP needs an interpreter, which in England is free and is booked by the practice. And for you, your family or a doctor who just needs to understand, a careful translation for reading, with the original beside it, is enough.
Sources
- Immigration Rules Part 1, paragraph 39B (original plus full translation, what the translation must include, extra certification for leave to remain, consequence of missing documents)
- GOV.UK: certifying a document (what a translator must confirm)
- GOV.UK: get a document legalised (apostille, what can and cannot be legalised)
- ATC, CIOL and ITI: Certified Translation, Getting It Right (no sworn translators or government system in the UK, registers, notarisation)
- CIOL: guidance on certified translations
- ITI: understanding certified translation in the UK
- NHS website: register with a GP surgery
- UK GDPR, Article 15 (right of access to your records)
- NHS England: You and your general practice (asking for an interpreter, registration and immigration status, fees for private work)
- NHS England: interpreting and translation in primary care (ICB responsibility)
- NHS England: guidance for commissioners, interpreting and translation services in primary care (free at the point of delivery, family and children as interpreters, translating documents from abroad, Summary Care Record translation)
- NHS England: improvement framework for community language translation and interpreting services (May 2025, updated June 2025; risks of translation apps and informal interpreters)
Claims about the Immigration Rules, translation bodies and NHS services are sourced to GOV.UK, NHS England, the NHS website and the CIOL, ITI and ATC, linked inline, and were checked on 9 November 2026. Rules and guidance change; this page will be updated as they do. This article is general information, not medical, legal or immigration advice. How exora handles your information is in our privacy policy.
