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Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust's website. 

This accessibility statement applies to West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust's website.

We are committed to providing an accessible web presence that gives our patients and other service users access to our services we provide.

We have developed this website to ensure that it is usable by everybody, regardless of age or disability.

Using our website

In order to ensure that all of our visitors can use our website, these pages aim to meet Level-AA standard of WCAG 2.1. This includes elements such as:

  • Alternative text for all images and providing non-visual alternatives where appropriate
  • All essential audio-visual information is captioned, described as necessary or provided in alternative formats
  • Content can be navigated with just a keyboard or speech recognition tools
  • The website can be zoomed in to 200% without text spilling off the screen
  • The website can be used with a screen reader
  • Content is structured, ordered and labelled appropriately
  • Change contrast levels
  • Modify the font, colours, line height or spacing of text
  • The text will reflow in a single column when you change the size of your browser window

We also provide assistive technology, enabling all websites visitors to customise their experience through a range of option to suit their online accessibility and language needs.

The ReachDeck toolbar provides text to speech functionality, fully customisable styling features, reading aids and a translation tool with over 100 languages, including 35 text to speech voices and many other features.

This does not fix accessibility issues, but enables us to provide a more inclusive website.

 

How accessible this website is

Parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

  • some pages and document attachments are not written in plain English
  • some documents have poor colour contrast
  • many documents are in PDF format and are not accessible
  • some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
  • some of our menus are difficult to nagivate using a keyboard
  • Not all videos are captioned, some multimedia content doesn’t yet have audio or text description

We are actively working to address these issues as part of an ongoing programme to improve the accessibility of this website.


Feedback and contact information

What to do if you cannot access parts of this website

Contact us if you have an accessibility query including:

  • if you have any problems accessing information or using this website
  • if you have any positive feedback about this website's accessibility
  • email PALS@wsh.nhs.uk
  • or call 01284 712555

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements by emailing communications@wsh.nhs.uk


Enforcement procedure

If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’).


Technical information about this website’s accessibility

We’re committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.


Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.


Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  1. Images on some pages do not always have suitable image descriptions. Users of assistive technologies may not have access to information conveyed in images. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content).
  2. Some content looks like headings but is not. This makes it difficult for screen reader users to navigate the page. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships).
  3. Many documents are in less accessible formats, for example PDF. Non-HTML documents published on or after 23 September 2018 must have an accessible format.
  4. Some of our video content may not be correctly captioned and subtitled. This fails WCAG 2.0 success criterion 1.2.2. Captions (Prerecorded), 1.2.3. Audio Description or Media Alternative (Prerecorded), and 1.2.5. Audio Description (Prerecorded)
  5. Some of our controls do not change appearance when they are selected by the keyboard. This fails WCAG 2.0 AA success criterion 2.4.7 (Ensure controls change appearance when they are selected)
  6. Some of our links are not distinguished by more than colour. This fails WCAG 2.0 success criterion 1.4.1
  7. Some of our lists are not marked-up correctly, making it difficult for screen readers to navigate. This fails WCAG 2.0 A success criterion 4.1.1
  8. PDF issues outstanding:
    WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) (PDF)
    WCAG 3.1.1 Language of Page (PDF)
    WCAG 1.3.1 Info and Relationships: Tables (PDF)
    WCAG 1.1.1 Non-text content (PDF)
  9. All pages:
    WCAG 2.1.1 Keyboard.
    WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible
    WCAG 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value: ARIA hidden element must not be focusable or contain focusable elements (Axe)

We are actively working to address these issues as part of an ongoing programme to improve the accessibility of this website.

 

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Many documents are not accessible in a number of ways including missing text alternatives and missing document structure.

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.

With a few exceptions, all new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards. All new documents that aren’t accessible will be clearly identified, and we will provide an accessible version wherever possible.

Videos and embedded content

WCAG 1.2.2. Captions (Prerecorded), 1.2.3. Audio Description or Media Alternative (Prerecorded), and 1.2.5. Audio Description (Prerecorded)

Some of our video content may not be correctly captioned and subtitled. We are reviewing all our video content to address this.

Where videos are old, to not break the YouTube URL or the ID of the video, some videos may have transcripts instead of captions.

 

Third party content

We may sometimes have third party content or functionality on our website. Where we are legally required to feature third party content, we cannot reasonably accept responsibility for ensuring it meets accessibility standards. However, for all content we have control over or have otherwise chosen to include, including that which we have paid for, we are obliged to work towards ensuring this content is accessible as possible. We are embedding accessibility into our procurement processes, meaning it is a necessary part of any contract for digital work.

Third party platforms

We use other applications to provide services through our websites, for example:

  • Cookie Control, cookie compliance software
  • ReachDesk, assistive toolbar

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We want our website to offer the best experience possible for all our users. In addition to our plan to fix known issues, we continue to work on website content and structure.

We are working with our supplier to fix existing issues and think about future developments.

We are planning a manual accessibility audit for our website, to understand any issues that cannot be found using automated testing alone.

 

How we tested this site

We use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1 level A and level AA to test how accessible our website is.

We use Silktide, an automated tool which scans our entire website to highlight any accessibility issues.

By March 2024 we will have manually tested our website for any accessibility issues that automated testing cannot identify. Any issues found will become part of an on-going development project to improve accessibility of our website.

 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 12 October 2020. It was last reviewed on 13 July 2023.