Accessibility Statement

Accessibility Statement for Northampton General Hospital

This accessibility statement applies to the Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust website (www.northamptongeneral.nhs.uk). This website is run by the IT Department at Northampton General Hopsital NHS Trust.

We are currently working to ensure all pages conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA 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 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)

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:

the text will not reflow in a single column in all areas of the website, when you change the size of the browser window, especially on mobile
you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
most PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
most older videos do not have captions
some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
the colour contrast is as issue
some menus are not visually accessible
there’s a limit to how far you can magnify certain elements on our website
some text is burnt into images on our website, this includes some buttons
some images on our website have missing or poor quality alt text
Some content on our website is not available unless JavaScript is enabled e.g. forms, maps and data visualisations.

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: ngh-tr.accessibility@nhs.net

Telephone: 01604 634700

Post:
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.

If you cannot view the map on our homepage or contact us page, call us on 01604 634700 or email ngh-tr.accessibility@nhs.net for directions. If you require directions around our hospital site, you can use the ‘Where do you want to go?’ feature on our homepage. This will provide you with text based directions around our hospital site.

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. If you’d like to contact us about something else, and you need a response, please use our contact page.

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 website.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust 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

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

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:

Some link text does not make sense when read on its own (for example ‘click here’ to see the map). This fails WCAG 2.0 success criterion 2.4.9 Link Purpose (Link Only).
On some pages there are multiple links, with the same link text, but in different destinations on the same page. This fails WCAG 2.0 success criterion 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context).
Many older PDF files contain broken links which do not resolve – we do not intend to resolve these as it is a disproportionate burden for files which are no longer in active use.

We scan our website monthly for broken links, and look to fix them as soon as they are identified.

We are working through the links which don’t make sense on their own, and we aim to have fixed these by September 2024.

Issues with PDFs and other documents

PDFs are not able to comply with the requirements of the web accessibility standards, and we do not generally upload new PDFs. Where we do create new PDFs, we use the accessible PDF standard which is more accessible.
Our website contains a large number of PDFs that were uploaded in previous years, especially in our information and data protection section of the website. Where these are no longer being updated, we do not intend to recreate them in accessible versions as this would be a disproportionate burden. The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to the provision of our services.

We aim to fix PDF issues by December 2024. When we publish new content we’ll make sure that PDF’s that are uploaded, meet accessibility standards.

Issues with images, video and audio

We are aware of the following issues with images and video on our site:

Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
Video content sometimes uses automated closed captioning provided by 3rd party services, this can often be inaccurate. This fails WCAG 2.0 success criterion 1.2.2 (Captions (Prerecorded)). We are working to add captions to all self-hosted content by December 2024.
Some pages may contain complex diagrams or drawings where suitable alt text is not possible. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). By September 2024 we intend to have reviewed all of these images, and where possible, will have converted them to accessible format such as SVG, used a different visualisation method, built the visualisation in HTML5, or added detailed description text to the page.
We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

We plan to add text alternatives for all images by December 2024. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.

Issues with text and content

There are some issues with text and content which we are aware of:

Some of our page titles are long, causing a technical fail on descriptive titles for web pages, which requires titles to be short. In most cases, this is related to legal or formal names for publications. We are not going to fix this, as the content is still understandable, and changing titles might cause compliance issues.
Not all of our content reaches our target reading age of 12 years old. This fails WCAG 3.1.5 (Reading Level). We are resolving this as content comes up through its review cycle, and this should be largely complete by December 2024.

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 3^rd 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.
We use a third party service called Trac to advertise jobs on our ‘Work for Us’ section of the website, we are working with this third party supplier to ensure the content displayed on our website meets the required accessibility standards.

Navigation and accessing information

It’s not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content. WCAG 2.0 success criterion 1.4.8 (Visual Presentation).
It’s not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping in some areas of our website. WCAG 2.0 success criterion 1.4.8 (Visual Presentation).
Our landing page tiles do not currently meet the required colour contrast for all users. This fails WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast (minimum). We are working to resolve this issue with plans to re-design the site in late 2024.
Our breadcrumb menu does not currently meet the recommended colour contrast. This fails WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast (minimum). We plan to resolve this issue December 2023.
On our services page, the A to Z menu does not currently meet the required colour contrast standards. This fails WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast (minimum). We plan to resolve this issue December 2023.

Interactive tools and transactions

Some of our interactive forms are difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, because some form controls are missing a ‘label’ tag. WCAG 2.0 success criterion 2.1.1 (Keyboard).
Our forms are built and hosted through third party software and ‘skinned’ to look like our website. WCAG 2.0 success criterion 2.1.1 (Keyboard).

Disproportionate Burden

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with navigation and accessing information, and with interactive tools and transactions. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when the supplier contract is up for renewal, likely to be in December 2024.

Historical PDF document conversion.

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

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. For example, the Trust board meetings which are streamed live.

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. From October 2023, we will begin designing a new version of the Northampton General Hospital website. We will be using the NHS.UK frontend frame-work to develop this website. We aim to launch the new website fully in 2024.

We will be using a mix of Northampton 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 ngh-tr.webdev@nhs.net.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 23^rd September 2020, when it was first published. It was last reviewed on 23rd November 2023.

The website was last tested on 23rd November 2023.

The test was carried out by Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust. The most viewed pages were tested using automated testing tools by our website team. A further audit of the website was carried out to the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.

Accessibility Statement