This paper presents the results of the second phase of a survey conducted in the Region of Emilia Romagna via structured questionnaire and interviews to service providers and community interpreters in the health sector. The early results were reported at the Conference held in Alcalà in 2002. In this phase of the survey questionnaires have been distributed and interviews conducted in Bologna, Cesena, Cesenatico and Ravenna, and data analysed in a thesis discussed at the University of Forlì. The main difference found two years later was that at present public health institutions in this Region do not consider language skills as essential. They rather attach the outmost importance to the task of ‘cultural mediators’ – preferably coming from the same countries as the patients – in allowing immigrants to have full access to the health services and facilitating health care staff’s work in these encounters.