Accessibility statement for University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust

 

Accessibility statement for University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust

This accessibility statement applies to https://www.plymouthhospitals.nhs.uk/.

This website is run by University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colour and contrast of the website
  • zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • the text will not reflow in a single column when you change the size of the browser window
  • There are some contrast issues which are being rectified.
  • some older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • live video streams do not have captions (unless via MS Teams)
  • Some externally-owned videos do not contain subtitles

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 7 days.

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, contact communications.phnt@nhs.net.

Enforcement procedure

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

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We are able to access text relay service for people who are D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

We are able to access audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter in person or via video link using SignLive.

If you could contact us via communications.phnt@nhs.net in advance, so that we can ensure we have access to the correct equipment.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust is 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, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

The website contains some inaccessible older PDFs, which we have been working to convert into accessible webpages.

This is a considerable task and priority has been given on the basis of clinical importance (for example: converting over 270 pdfs in our Patient Information Leaflets section which are essential to patient care).

Non-compliant PDFs have been identified in our accessibility roadmap document and we will continue to address the remaining PDFs by clinical priority throughout the rest of 2020.

There are some contrast issues, which at time of writing, are currently being rectified by our CMS supplier.  This impacts visited links (in normal contrast), the contrast between the main navigation style and text overlay and is non-compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA [1.4.3 – Contrast (Minimum)]. It is anticipated that this fix will be in place by early October 2020.

 

Disproportionate burden

 

Audio Descriptions

Historically our video content does not include Audio Descriptions and this is difficult to implement using YouTube so would need to be in-built to the video. At this time, this is deemed to be disproportionate burden as it would require considerable re-work for little additional accessibility, as videos are typically either:

  1. very tightly scripted, making it hard to fit audio descriptions in without impacting voice-over.
  2. the voiceover is explaining a clinical process, making audio descriptions repetitive

 

Captions and transcriptions are available on our YouTube videos and we will continue to assess how we can make Audio Descriptions available as a toggle option and build them into future video content.

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

PDFs and other documents

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. For example, we do not plan to fix pre-2018 Freedom of Information disclosures. As detailed previously, we are however focussing on making sure those PDFs which are essential to our services are provide in an accessible format.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Our accessibility roadmap shows how and when we plan to improve accessibility on this website.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 22 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 22 September 2020.

This website was last tested on 28 August 2020. The test was carried out by VerseOne Group LTD.

Verseone tested design and content on a sample of popular pages and examples of core function against WCAG 2.1AA standard. A general check was expanded to the wider website by the team at University Hospitals Plymouth. Completed and ongoing actions can be seen in the accessibility roadmap.

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