Accessibility statement

Introduction

This website is run by South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SCAS). 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 400% 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, for example:

• making text larger
• magnifying the screen
• changing your colours
• using your own style sheets.

Most browsers let you skip from link to link using the Tab key. The current link will be highlighted. To move backwards, hold down Shift and press the Tab key.

We do not use access keys as they may interfere with keyboard controls of browsers and screen readers.

Supported browsers
Popular browsers are in general fully supported. If you are using an older browser, particularly older versions of Internet Explorer, we may not be able to give you a full visual experience.

 

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

• Some of our videos do not have captions – if you require a transcript for any of our videos, please contact us. To turn captions on please click the button on the embedded video player – this is reachable using the tab key
• Most PDF documents are accessible to screen reader software for the reasons given below. These are marked with an asterisk (*).
  We are working to update these to make them accessible PDFs on an ongoing basis. If you come across a PDF document which you wish to view that has not yet been made accessible, please contact us and we will provide an accessible version.

 

Feedback and contact information

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

• email communications@scas.nhs.uk
• call 01869 365000
• write to:
  South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust
  Unit 7 &8 Talisman Business Centre
  Talisman Road
  Bicester
  Oxfordshire
  OX26 6HR.

We’ll consider your request and get back to you as soon as possible.

 

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, please contact: communications@scas.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) or see the NHS England page on The Accessible Information Standard (DCB1605 Accessible Information).

 

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

Find out how to contact us.

 

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

SCAS is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 and The Accessible Information Standard (DCB1605 Accessible Information). This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below. SCAS is working hard to meet these standards on an on-going basis.

 

Non accessible content

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

 

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

Documents on the website

• Most of our PDF documents are accessible to screen reader software, these are marked with an asterisk (*)
  We are updating the documents not covered by the ‘Disproportionate burden’ rule (see below) on an ongoing basis and hope to this resolved by December 2021. This currently fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (information and relationships)
• A small percentage of our PDF documents contain missing or blank ALT descriptive tags. In line with the issue above, we will be updating these documents on an ongoing basis and hope to this resolved by December 2021. This currently fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text content).

Documents produced by other organisations

Some of our forms and guideline documents are produced by EU or UK partners. We will update these documents as accessible versions become available from partners. This currently fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (information and relationships).

Prerecorded media

Some of our prerecorded media (video) does not have captions / subtitles. We will be adding captions to all media and hope to this resolved by December 2021. This currently fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2 (Prerecorded)

 

Disproportionate burden

Having carried out a detailed check of all uploaded PDF files to scas.nhs.uk, we have assessed it would be a disproportionate burden to fix all of the documents published on scas.nhs.uk since 23 September 2018, by 23 September 2020. The low numbers of views on these documents doesn’t justify the cost of time, effort and resource to fix them. However, we are looking at which of these documents we should fix and update on an ongoing basis.

Going forward our Board Papers also fall into this category. The huge cost of converting these documents is not financially justifiable. Instead we advice all interested parties to contact company.secretary@scas.nhs.uk to talk through any information that might be required.

We will ensure that all other new documents published on the website after 23 September 2020 are accessible, however, if you require help accessing information in any of the earlier documents please email communications@scas.nhs.uk.

 

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

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs produced before 23 September 2018 do not meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader.

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 Board papers from before this date.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish for guidance and reports will meet accessibility standards (See Disproportionate burden exceptions above). Some fillable forms which need to be downloaded and interacted with will not be accessible until we move to a new digital solution in the future.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Pre-recorded video

We also utilise the automatic captioning and subtitling service on Youtube and Facebook. This is partially useful for our deaf and partial hearing patients.

Details of these services can be found on the relevant websites.

 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 21 September 2020. It was last updated on 22 September 2021.

This website was last tested on 22 September 2020. The test was carried out by South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust Communications Team.

We tested our main website at www.scas.nhs.uk

 

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are working to improve accessibility on this website. Internally we have created an ‘Accessibility Hub’ training site on our Intranet with templates, instructions and video guides. This has been communicated to all staff who are expected to produce accessible material going forward. We have also carried out extensive staff training to our small team of web editors and implemented processes to ensure that documents we produce are easier to navigate.

We are also working closely with our Network Accessibility Lead to further improve our site in the future.

We have added alternative text to all images on our website and will be adding captions to all prerecorded video.