Accessibility Statement

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 300% 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:

• some older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
• Our videos do not include transcripts
• Some externally-owned videos do not contain subtitles
• Some images feature information that is not accessible, for example, infographics

 

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:

• email communications.phnt@nhs.net
• call 01752 432666

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.

We are currently checking our site for compliance with WCAG 2.2 and aim to complete this by August 2025.

 

Non-accessible content

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

 

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Some of our PDFs do not display the title of the document in the browser. This fails WCAG 2.4.2 Page titled. We manually updated a large number of PDFs from August 2023 to August 2024. There are still some outstanding PDFs that we will correct as we update pages.

Some of our images contain text. This fails WCAG 1.4.5 Images of Text. We plan to replace these images with text or add additional text to the page, whichever is the most appropriate course of action. We started this in August 2023 and will continue during 2025 until all pages have been reviewed.

Some coloured text and text in coloured boxes do not meet the standards for contrast and could be difficult to read for some users. This fails WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast. We plan to change the colour or remove the boxes so that it is compliant. We will continue to review this in 2025 with most boxes now updated.

We will need to check WCAG 2.2 AA Target size to ensure buttons and links are not too close together. We aim to complete this by August 2025. 

 

Disproportionate burden

Our organisation has limited public resources which must be managed appropriately to deliver essentials services to the public. The cost of fixing the issues outlined below would be a substantial burden on us and the public resources we manage.

 

Audio Descriptions

Our video content does not currently include Audio Descriptions as this is difficult to implement using YouTube and would need to be in-built to the video.

We have deemed this to be a disproportionate burden as it would require considerable re-work and staff hours for little additional accessibility. Most of our videos have audio, in the form of voiceover or interviews, that provides clear information about clinical processes and services.

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

 

Documents

Some of our PDFs do not have descriptions for images and charts and require more work to be fully accessible. Due to the large number of documents on our website, we've assessed that it would be a disproportionate burden to fix all documents published since 23 September 2018.

We have approximately 1,000 documents which would need to be reviewed and potentially fixed. If we make a conservative estimate of two hours to update each document, it will take 266 working days to complete. This would incur a considerable cost using our limited resources.

The benefit to the user would be limited as a number of these documents have low use and users are able to contact us if they need an alternative version.

Over the past three years, we have prioritised making essential documents accessible and our patient information leaflets have been converted to webpages as well as being available as PDFs.

We will continue to work on these issues, focussing on those essential to providing our services.

 

Accessibility Check

At this time, we cannot reasonably afford to pay an external supplier to do a detailed WCAG 2.1 audit. Due to this we have carried out a basic check in-house. We will complete a full audit when funding allows.

 

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

We will continue to make changes to make our website as accessible as possible. We plan to carry out a content audit in the next year (December 2024 to December 2025) and make further improvements.

Issues flagged through our accessibility checks will be resolved as soon as possible by the team responsible for the website and external support.

 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 08 August 2023. It was last reviewed in December 2024.

This website was last tested during August to September 2024. This was a basic check carried out by the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust web team.