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Accessibility

Accessibility statement for cntw.nhs.uk

This accessibility statement applies to cntw.nhs.uk.

This website is run by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation 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 colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • 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:

  • Many documents are in PDF format and are not accessible
  • Some documents have poor colour contrast
  • Most images do not have text alternatives (alt-text)
  • Ambiguous link text is used in some areas of the site
  • Some heading elements are not in sequentially-descending order
  • Some content uses sensory characteristics that relies on visual location of colour
  • Some tables do not have row headings
  • Some of our videos do not include transcripts

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  five 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 the Trust’s communications team at communications@cntw.nhs.uk

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).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation 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 listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  • Some documents have poor colour contrast failing WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (contrast minimum).
  • Most images do not have text alternatives (alt-text) failing WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
  • Ambiguous link text is used in some areas of the site failing WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (link purpose in context).
  • Some heading elements are not in sequentially-descending order failing WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.3 (focus order).
  • Some content uses sensory characteristics that relies on visual location of colour failing WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.3 (sensory characteristics).
  • Some tables do not have row headings failing WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.2 (meaningful sequence)
  • Some of our videos do not include transcripts failing WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.3 (audio description or media alternative – prerecorded).

We aim to fix these issues over the next 12 months and provide assurance that from this point forward, anything we publish on the website will meet the guidance.

The website also contains a range of third party content and functionality. This may direct you to a related service, or partner we work with, where we are not responsible for the accessibility of this content.

Disproportionate burden

PDF documents since September 2018

Some of our content across the site is in PDF format where a durable format is needed. We will be reviewing all PDF documents that are essential for our services and converting these to accessible pages.

However, we have examined documents published before 23rd September 2018 and we’ve assessed the cost of fixing these documents. We believe that doing so would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations.

Navigation and accessing information

There’s no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option).

It’s not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content.

It’s not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping.

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

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).

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, and forms published as Word documents. By May 2021, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

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 the Annual Report 2014/15.

Videos

We plan to add captions to all video content on our website, hosted on our YouTube channel.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

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

We have:

  • Undertaken accessibility training
  • Purchased new software to help improve accessibility on the site
  • Reviewed the content and will be introducing new templates
  • Met several times with our website providers and informatics team to discuss accessibility.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 24th September 2020. It was last reviewed on 22nd December 2020.

This website was last tested on 24th September 2020. A full website audit has been undertaken and carried out by a trusted agency.

As our website contains thousands of pages, we selected a sample of pages to test based on average use, volume of traffic, and content type. We tested the following pages as they contain our main features used across the site:

We tested:

We will publish our audit here once it has been completed.