Accessibility statement for nwas.nhs.uk

This accessibility statement applies to nwas.nhs.uk

This website is run by North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • 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)

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.

How accessible this website is

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

  • Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • Some of our images are missing text alternatives (alt-text)
  • Some images of text are used across the site that might be difficult to interpret using screen reader software. We are making a conscious effort to ensure that where any images contain text, we apply the information within as accessible text elsewhere on the webpage

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:

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, contact: 

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

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.

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).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

North West Ambulance Service 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 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

PDFs and non-HTML documents

Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software. These do not meet the following criteria: 

  • 1.3.1 Info and relationships
  • 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)
  • 1.4.5 Images of text
  • 1.4.12 Text spacing
  • 2.4.6 Headings and labels

Although we make every effort to ensure the PDFs on our website are accessible, we have identified some instances where this is not achievable due to the complexity of the document. We have more information about PDF accessibility below.

Images

Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). We plan to add text alternatives for all images by 31 December 2024.

Some images of text are used across the site that might be difficult to interpret using screen reader software. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.5 (images of text). We plan to remove or add text alternatives for all images by 31 December 2024.

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

PDFs and non-HTML documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents.

We have recently gone through the process of updating the websites codebase to ensure where possible, we can upload a PDF as a HTML webpage on our website. We are currently working through our existing PDFs to turn these into accessible webpages. This is an ongoing process.

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 Equality, Diversity employment monitoring data 2017.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have recently undergone accessibility training to ensure our team is up to date with the most recent accessibility guidance. Our website has recently undergone a WCAG 2.2 accessibility audit to ensure our website is accessible against WCAG 2.2 standards.

As part of our commitment to accessibility, we have also updated our codebase to ensure PDFs can be successfully turned into HTML webpages. This is an ongoing process, and we are committed to ensuring any new PDFs are converted into HTML webpages.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 4 January 2021. It was last reviewed on 12 April 2024.

This website was last tested against WCAG 2.2 in February 2024 by Mixd. The following tools were used in the review, including automated checkers, browsers, browser plugins, readability test tool, colour contrast test tool and screen readers.

  • Mac OSX VoiceOver
  • WebAIM Color Contrast Checker
  • Microsoft Accessibility Insights
  • Wave
  • Google Lighthouse

Manual testing

  • Keyboard testing: navigation and focusable items
  • Check for links with ambiguous link text
  • Check for alt attributes
  • Check form elements: descriptive labels and/or ARIA attributes
  • Zoom readability/usability
  • Page structure: landmarks and headings

Screen reader testing

  • Quality and accuracy of link text and image attributes
  • Spelling mistakes and reading order
  • Interactivity with custom controls
  • Accuracy of ARIA properties
  • Accessibility of dynamic changes: predictive search, page content that changes on activation, filtered listings

As our website contains thousands of pages, we selected a sample of pages to test based on average use, volume of traffic, and content type. We tested the following pages as they contain our main features used across the site:

We tested: