Accessibility Statement
This accessibility statement applies to the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire website (www.uhn.nhs.uk). This website is run by the IT Department at Northampton General Hopsital NHS Trust.
We are confident that all pages on this website conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards in line with the EU Accessibility Directive. Our accessibility statement sets out this commitment and what we are actively doing to improve the accessibility of our website.
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)
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand. We aim to write content from an average reading age of 12 years old.
Some of our content uses medical or technical terms. We only use these terms when there is no easier wording we could use without changing what the text means.
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
- You cannot modify the line height or spacing of text.
- Some content on our website is not available unless JavaScript is enabled e.g. forms, maps and data visualisations.
- The Twitter widget on our homepage is provided by Twitter and alt text is missing from profile images within the widget.
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, you can contact us using one of the below methods:
E-mail: accessibility@ngh.nhs.uk
Telephone: 01604 545382
Post:
The Digital Communications Manager
Web Development Team
IT Department
Northampton General Hospital
Cliftonville
Northampton
NN1 5BD
We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 14 days from the receipt of your letter. It is likely that you will receive a faster response if you contact us via e-mail or telephone.
Reporting accessibility problems with this website
We are always looking to improve the accessibility of our website. If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or you think we’re not meeting the accessibility requirements, please email us.
Please note: this email address is only for reporting issues about accessibility.
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
You can find out how to contact us on our trust websites:
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
We are 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 compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
The content that is not accessible is outlined below with details of:
- Where it fails the success criteria
- Planned dates for when issues will be fixed
- Issues with technology
The vast majority of our website works correctly on any web technology.
For security reasons, we only support TLS 1.2 and higher security protocols, and this means that some older browsers will not show the website.
How our site looks and works is based on HTML5 and CSS3, and we test for and support the following browsers:
- Google Chrome (versions in support)
- Mozilla Firefox (versions in support)
- Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 11 only)
- Microsoft Edge (versions in support)
- Apple Safari (versions in support)
We also test in the Lynx browser to ensure that the site renders correctly for non-screen users.
You may experience unexpected behaviour in other browsers, especially in older versions, although we use validated code which should work in any browser.
Issues with links
We are aware of the following issues with the links on our site:
No issues detected
We scan our website monthly for broken links, and look to fix them as soon as they are identified.
Issues with PDFs and other documents
- We have two PDF documents on this website, they have both been put through accessibility checks, the documents are accessible.
Issues with images, video and audio
We are aware of the following issues with images and video on our site:
- We have one YouTube video on the website. Some scripts and cookies may be required to play the video. We use YouTube's privacy enhanced mode to protect the privacy of our visitors.
Issues with text and content
There are some issues with text and content which we are aware of:
No issues detected
Issues with interactive tools and transactions
Some parts of this site link to our use content provided by other websites and these are not always as accessible as our site. Examples of these are:
- Some videos on our website are hosted by 3rd party video hosting providers, such as YouTube. We are unable to fix these issues, however will provide captions through our developer studios to improve user experience.
- Embedded posts from social media channels like Facebook or Twitter may not be fully accessible. However, we already follow all best practice when posting on corporate social media channels.
Navigation and accessing information
No issues detected
Interactive tools and transactions
No issues detected
What we are doing to improve the accessibility of our website
We are continuously looking at ways we can improve our website’s accessibility based on user testing and automated tests. We hold regular meetings and generate reports to measure our progress and identify areas for improvement.
We also began to run mandatory accessibility training courses for our web content authors and promote the importance of accessibility using out internal communication channels.
We have recently upgraded our content management system, which powers our website. We are currently migrating content to the new version.
We use a mix of Northampton General Hospital staff, Kettering General Hospital staff and members of the general public to help us user test what we build. If you are interested in helping us improve the digital content we deliver to you, please contact us via e-mail webdev@ngh.nhs.uk.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 1st July 2021, when it was first published. It was last reviewed on 1st July 2021.
The website was last tested on 1st July 2021 by Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust. A sample of 3 web pages and 2 PDFs were tested. This equates to the entire website at the time of testing.