Accessibility statement

We are aware of some issues that may affect the accessibility of some parts of the website:  

• most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software

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

• email communications@emas.nhs.uk
• call 01158 845000

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

If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, call or email us for directions.

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 us.

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).

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

Our offices have audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

Find out how to contact us

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.

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

PDFs

Most of our PDFs comply with WCAG 2.1 to Level A and AA. Please see the disproportionate burden section below for more information. 

The Learning From Deaths Policy has not been updated to comply with WCAG 2.1 to Level A and AA as an updated version of this policy is currently awaiting committee approval. Once the updated Learning From Deaths Policy is available, it will be formatted to be compliant and published on this website. 

However, if you find you are having problems with any of our PDFs please contact us and we will provide the document in an alternative format.  

Disproportionate burden

There are a number of issues with our vacancies page that may affect the accessibility of the page. These include:

• Images have meaningless alt text which might be confusing the screen reader users. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.1.1 (Text Alternative).
• The page is missing heading elements. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and relationships)
• The search results are not announced so screen reader users will be unaware that their search has been completed. This fails WCAG success criterion 4.1.3 (Status Message).

This page is provided by a third party and skinned to look like our website.

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the above issues and believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. This is because we do not have direct access to the page and are reliant on the third-party organisation to make the fixes.

There are a number of issues across the whole website that may affect the accessibility of the pages.

These include: 

• Trust Board videos uploaded to the website to support the Trust Board documents during COVID restrictions will not be captioned due to their length and thus the amount of time it would take to do this, combined with the limited number of people who will be accessing the video. 
• Some older PDFs and Trust Board documents published in PDF format may not comply with WCAG 2.1 to Level A and AA which may make them difficult for some of our users to access. For example:
  • Graphs and images do not have descriptive alt text so are inaccessible to screen reader users. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.1.1 (Text Alternative)
  • They currently do use the correct heading structure, which makes it difficult for screen reader users to navigate the document. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.3.1 (Info & Relationships)
  • They have no bookmarks which can make it difficult for screen reader users to discern the structure of the document. This fails WCAG success criterion 2.4.5 (Multiple Ways)
  Because new Trust Board documents are published monthly or every other month, and comprise hundreds of pages, editing each to be WCAG 2.1 AA compliant is a disproportionate burden. Anyone who requires a more accessible word version of the document should contact contact us.

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the above issues and believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations.

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^rd  September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.

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

Time-based media

Videos published on the site before 23^rd September 2020 are exempt from the government accessibility regulations so do not have audio description or a text alternative.

Any new videos will be published to meet accessibility standards.

Maps

The accessibility regulations do not require us to provide an alternative to our maps as long as our address is available in an accessible format.