Accessibility statement for www.nelft.nhs.uk

Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to this website: www.nelft.nhs.uk

The W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and the NHS Accessible information standard help us make our services better for you. That means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast, and language
  • 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  

We have 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.

Accessibility tools and assistance

  • We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website, so we have several different tools in place to support people to access our services. These include:
  • Being able to change the contrast of the site with three settings. This can be seen and set at the very top of each page of this website.
  • Being able to select a different language. This is provided by Google and can be seen and at the very top of each page of this website.
  • ReachDeck , which offers speech, reading and translation support to improve accessibility. The ReachDeck toolbar can be switched on by clicking the floating orange listening ear icon in the top right corner of each page of this website.
  • AccessAble produces online accessibility guides to buildings, sites & venues across the UK. AccessAble is an accessibility guide that you can use to find wheelchair friendly venues or check out disabled access and facilities at our sites. You can access our location listings and guides on the AccessAble website .
  • We use Alternative Text (Alt Text) or a description on all images on this website for screen reader users.

Accessible Information Standard

The Standard states how we should ensure that patients/service users including, carers and parents with a disability, impairment or sensory loss disability receive information in formats that they can understand (e.g. easy read*, braille**) and appropriate support to help them to communicate for example a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter, deafblind manual interpreter or an advocate. Interpretation and translation services will be provided if requested including face to face interpreting, instant telephone interpreting, document translation; and British Sign Language interpreting for those where their first language is not English, or who have a disability, impairment or sensory loss.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of our website are not fully accessible. For example:

  • Many of our documents and policies are not in fully accessible PDF formats
  • some images contained within our older blog posts and news articles do not contain alternative text or a description
  • some link text may not make sense when read on its own (for example, ‘click here’)
  • some of our videos do not have captions/subtitles/transcripts
  • most of the videos embedded in our site and are hosted on other platforms such as YouTube. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of subtitles or translations for those hosted outside of our website where auto-translation has been used
  • some of our resources and materials have been produced outside of the organisation and we cannot guarantee their accessibility complies with the standard.

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 will consider your request and get back to you in 3 days.

We use Google Maps for directions to our locations which are not screen reader accessible. If you cannot view the maps on our ‘contact us’ page , or any of the Google maps embedded on our site, please call or email us for directions using the contact details above.

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

North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) 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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

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

  1. WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum). Text does not have sufficient contrast. We are working through our pages to improve the contrast on all elements. 
  2. WCAG 1.4.5 Images of Text. Some images on our website contain text. We are actively working to remove images with Text from the website, or include the full text content on the page in addition to the image. 

PDFs and other document formats

  • WCAG 2.4.2 Page Titled. PDF documents should have titles that describe the topic without having to read the entire document. We will be converting documents to HTML using an Accessible Documents Creator Module and revisiting non accessible PDFs and other documents as described below in ‘What we’re doing to improve accessibility.’ All new PDFs added to the site wil have Page Title added.
  • WCAG 3.1.1 Language of Page. The language is missing within the settings of PDF documents. We will be converting documents to HTML using an Accessible Documents Creator Module and revisiting non accessible PDFs and other documents as described below in ‘What we’re doing to improve accessibility.’ All new PDFs added to the site will have Language of Page added.
  • WCAG 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. There are tables in documents that do not have correctly marked up headers. We will be converting documents to HTML using an Accessible Documents Creator Module and revisiting non accessible PDFs and other documents as described below in ‘What we’re doing to improve accessibility.’ 
  • 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. We plan to either fix these by replacing them with accessible documents, or converting them to online digital forms.
  • Not all PDFs on our website are fully accessible to screen reader software. We are actively working to remove older PDFs from our website and where possible, upload an accessible Word version that has been created accessibly at source, or convert to a HTML version.
Please note: PDFs may still be used in instances where the document or material has been specifically designed for download and print, for example, leaflets and posters, infographics and some referral forms.
Our Board papers, Council of Governor papers and our Annual Reports contain hundreds of pages including images, tables and charts from multiple departments making them very difficult and time consuming to make completely accessible or convert to HTML for the limited number of interested users.

If you are having any issues accessing any documents on our website, please contact us using the details at the bottom of this page so we can provide this information for you in an alternative format.

Links

Some link text may not make sense when read on its own (for example, ‘click here’, or 'read more'). We are reviewing the links within our website to make sure they are updated to an accessible format and include titles.

Images

Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. These are mainly located within our blog post articles This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). We are working with our developers VerseOne Technologies Ltd. to make this mandatory at the point of uploading. In the meantime, we will include a description field on images where this is necessary.

Most images used on this website include descriptive alternative text. This means that if the person using this website has a visual impairment and is using software that reads the site content to them it will include a description of any image on that page. Some previous images that are included in our blog posts / news articles do not have this functionality, so we are working with our developer to include this for all images. We will manually enter descriptions for images included in our bog posts / news articles and retrospectively add them from January 2023. 

Browser compatibility

This site has been developed and tested in several desktop and mobile device internet browsers using Responsive Web Design techniques. This means that you should be able to comfortably view the site on either a computer screen, smartphone, or tablet. However, compatibility may be impacted if you are using an older device or and older version of browsers.

Videos and maps from external sources and third party plug-ins

Many of our videos are embedded from YouTube and we cannot guarantee the accuracy of subtitles or translations.

We use Google Maps to pull through directions to some of our service locations on our website which aren’t screen-reader accessible.

We use Google Translate to assist people where English is not their first language, but we cannot guarantee the accuracy of translations or the style/layout of the plug-in.

Other languages

Visitors to our site who wish to access information in other languages may use the Google Translate feature which is available on every page on our website from a box at the top of the page. This is a third party service and any use of its translation services is subject to its rules or requirements.

The translations are made through an automated process which may not result in accurate or precise translations. Anyone using the Google Translate does so at his or her own risk and the user accepts the legal implications of any shortcomings or differences in the translation.

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

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.

Disproportionate burden assessment

We've assessed that it would be a disproportionate burden to fix all documents published on the website since 23 September 2018. 

A number of these documents are rarely viewed, therefore they are unlikely to be negatively impacting users with disabilities or impairments. For this reason, we don't believe the cost of time, effort and resource to fix all the documents is justified.

We will focus on fixing those which are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Microsoft Word documents.

It's difficult to know how long it would take to make every document accessible without first reviewing each one.  

Potentially each document would require several hours of work to be recreated in a fully accessible version (estimated based on extensive experience of converting documents at between 2 and 30 hours per document, depending on length and complexity, plus any required sign-off, or subject matter expert involvement).

We believe that:

  • The resources and nature of our organisation mean that there are limited public resources available which must be managed appropriately and in the public interest to prioritise the delivery of essential services to the public
  • The costs of fixing all of the documents on our website would be a substantial burden on us and the public resources we manage
  • The benefit to users would be limited and their needs can be met in other ways
  • Therefore, fixing all documents on our website would impose a disproportionate burden on us.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

To address the issue of PDFs and other documents not being fully accessible, we are working with our developers VerseOne Technologies Ltd. and deploying their Accessible Documents Creator Module, which enables the conversion of documents from PDF into HTML pages. We will begin converting some service documents from March 2024 and continuing to work our way through patient information documents, followed by other organisation wide documents. 

We also plan to replace our Word document referral forms with online digital versions, but keeping the option for alternative formats if requested.

We will be training our staff on the basic principles of creating accessible documents, starting from the source Word document. This will be ongoing.

All new content added to our website will be checked against  Web Content Accessibility Guidelines - Version 2.1

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 4 October 2023 and updated on 04 March 2024 following further assessments and improvements made.

This website was last tested in July 2023. The test was carried out by VerseOne Technologies Ltd. They tested 425 pages and a manual review of the items using the gold, platinum, and platinum plus accessibility services.

The Government Digital Service (GDS) also carried out an Accessibility Report on our website on 24 July 2023. 

Get in touch

If you require additional support to access any of the information on our website, please get in touch so that we can assist you: