Accessibility statement

Updated 27 September 2024

Introduction

This accessibility statement was last updated on 30 September 2024. It applies to the domain of www.scas.nhs.uk run by South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SCAS).

We are committed to making our website as accessible as possible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 and The Accessible Information Standard (DCB1605 Accessible Information).

We want our site to be as accessible as possible for as many people as possible. We are working on improvements to meet the website accessibility WCAG 2.2 standard.

You should be able to use a range of browsers without compromising your experience, and have options 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).

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.

Internet browsing tools for people with additional needs

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.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability, for example:

Requesting alternative formats

If you need information from this website in a different format, such as an accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording, or braille, please contact us. We will consider your request and respond as soon as possible.

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

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting specific accessibility requirements, please contact: PatientExperience@scas.nhs.uk

If you’re not happy with how we respond to your concerns, you can contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) or see the NHS England page on The Accessible Information Standard (DCB1605 Accessible Information).

Accessibility compliance status

The site was last tested in August 2024 to identify improvements needed to comply with Web Content Accessibility Guides (WCAG) 2.2 levels A and AA; and HTML5 and CSS standards.

The test was carried out by our external web hosting contractor using a combination of:

Manual Testing using AXE, a testing tool that scans a given page for different quality issues including accessibility and web standards compliance.
Automated Testing using SortSite, a testing tool that scans websites for different quality issues including accessibility and web standards compliance.

The testing confirms our current site is only partially compliant.

Some issues of non-compliance are related to the core Content Management System (CMS) that the site was built on. Our longer-term objective is to rebuild the site on a fully compliant CMS; however, the Trust does not currently have the funding available to progress this.

All reasonable actions to address identified compliance issues, within the constraints of the current CMS, are being implemented. In 2024 this includes:

Coding updates by our new external provider.
Testing installing additional accessibility tools.
Raising identified issues with third-party plug-in providers and requesting their products are updated to address accessibility issues.
Reviewing, updating, restructuring or where appropriate removing content from the site.

Known non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Content on the website

Captions/subtitles not displaying if playing YouTube videos within the site.
Users may need to check their settings or click through to the full YouTube site to see the onscreen words. To turn captions on please click the button on the embedded video player – this is reachable using the tab key. To request a transcript for any of our videos, please contact PatientExperience@scas.nhs.uk.
Non-accessible PDFs.
Most of our PDF documents are accessible to screen reader software. The only ones that are not accessible are the ones where a disproportionate burden Our Board Papers are the main documents which we cannot produce as accessible PDFs without a disproportionate burden. If you come across a non-accessible PDF of information you need, please contact PatientExperience@scas.nhs.uk to request and accessible version.
Links to external content
Some links may direct you to forms and guideline documents produced by EU or UK partners. The accessibility of external documents is not within our control.

Code running the website

Our website code is not currently fully accessible for the following reasons:

Keyboard (WCAG 2.1.1)

– Some links under ‘Latest News’ cannot be accessed using the keyboard.
– The back to the top button is not accessible using the keyboard.
– The search magnifying glass icon is now not accessible using the keyboard. It does not open the same way as the mouse.
– At 200% zoom, links within the hamburger menu are not accessible using the keyboard.

This is a problem with the plugin used by the website developer and, unfortunately, our web hosting company is unable to resolve this.

Parsing (WCAG 4.1.1)

This ID appears twice in the website code: =”wpa_label_s” (once in the mobile navigation and once in the desktop navigation due to the way the website developer has added it).

Info on parsing: In content implemented using markup languages, elements have complete start and end tags, elements are nested according to their specifications, elements do not contain duplicate attributes, and any IDs are unique, except where the specifications allow these features. (Level A).

Parsing is an issue linked to WCAG 2.1 standards. The latest WCAG 2.2 removed parsing as an issue: www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/parsing.html .

Improvement actions

In progress actions

Reviewing all pages to remove content blocks with text/background contrast issues
Reviewing all pages to ensure images have effective alt tags
Removing historical content more than five-years old, and implementing a rolling programme to remove content when it passes five-years from publication.
Notification of accessibility issues to third-party plug-in providers. Including removal of some third-party widgets until they can provide compliant options.
Developing internal business case for funding to rebuild website on fully compliant CMS.

Closed actions

Sept 2024 – coding updates to resolve issues identified in August testing. Restructured content pages to remove all third level navigation from the site’s drop down navigation menu.
Aug 2024 – Tested additional accessibility plug-in for Divi. Resulted in as many new issues as solved issues so was not implemented on live site.
Jun 2024 – Removed rolling carousel from Home page.
Mar to July 2024 – Trained all web editors and implemented processes to ensure new content pages have alternative text for all images, and to limit the uploading of non-accessible content. A disproportionate burden still applies for the uploading of Trust Board papers.

Our approach to accessibility testing

We use our external supplier for website support and hosting to carry out accessibility checks and identify appropriate fixes. They use a combination of manual testing and automated-testing. We carry out an annual check, allocating a proportion of our annual support hours to carry out the testing and implement changes.

Accessibility statement history

Current version: 27 September 2024
Previous updates: 31 July 2023
First published: 21 September 2020

Content not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other content

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. We are implementing a process to archive content older than five years to reduce the amount of inaccessible content stored on the site. New PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards, with the exception of a limited set of publications which we have deemed it would be a Disproportionate burden to produce in fully accessible format. 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.

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 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.