Accessibility

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. The website features an accessibility toolbar that was built in-house and provides web content in a variety of formats to make content more accessible including:

• Google Translate
• change text size
• highlight links
• change font
• contrast

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand, aiming for a reading age of a 12-year old. Some of our content is technical, and we use technical terms where there is no easier wording we could use without changing what the text means.

If you have a disability then AbilityNet has advice to help you make your device easier to use.

How accessible this website is

Over the past 12 months we have worked hard to make sure our site is accessible to everyone. This has involved reviewing content, refining the navigation and making technical changes to ensure we are compliant with the web content accessibility guidelines.

Since the beginning of 2021 we have fixed hundreds of issues allowing screen-readers and keyboard only users to navigate our site much more smoothly.

With this in mind, we are always looking to improve accessibility and there are some parts of this website which are still not fully accessible and examples include:

• we have many old publication documents which are in PDF format, and haven’t been designed for accessibility
• some content is embedded in our website, such as videos, and you cannot easily scale these on screen (but you can open a full screen version)
• some pages and document attachments are not clearly written
• live video streams do not have captions
• some images and link text do not have good alternative text

How to request content in an accessible format

If you have problems accessing information on this website, or would like any of our work in a different format like a more accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording, or braille:

• email our engagement team
• call 01726 627800

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 3 working days.

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, email our communications team.

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

NHS Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Issues with technology

The vast majority of our website works correctly on any web technology.

However, this website no longer supports Internet Explorer, as this browser is now at the end of its lifecycle. Read more information about the withdrawal of IE support.

Issues with links

We are aware of the following issues within the links on our site:

• many older PDF files contain broken links which do not work – we do not intend to resolve these as it is a disproportionate burden for files which are no longer in active use

We scan the site weekly for broken links, and look to fix them as soon as they are identified.

Issues with PDFs and other documents

PDFs are not able to comply with the requirements of the web accessibility standard, and we do not generally upload new PDFs. Where we do create new PDFs, we use the PDF/A standard which is more accessible.

Our site contains PDFs created in previous years, especially in our policies and procedures. 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 providing our services.

By March 2021 we intend to have completed the process of converting PDFs still in active use into accessible web formats.

We do not generally add new PDFs to our site. There are some exceptions:

• we add some PDFs as downloads of reports or publications, but where a web page version is also available
• our annual reports, which must, by law, be laid before parliament in a printed version, and then appear unaltered
• our directions and data provision notices which must, by law, include a signature in order to be valid
• downloads intended for print purposes, such as posters

We also have a number of forms in Microsoft Word format, which are not accessible. We will either replace these with accessible HTML forms, or remove them, by March 2021.

Issues with images and video

We strive to make all of our content accessible. We are aware of the following issues with images and video on our site:

• some of the video content does not have captioning
• some of the images on our site are complex diagrams where suitable alt text is not possible

We plan to add text alternatives for all images by October 2020. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.

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

Issues with text and content

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

• not all of our content reaches our target reading age of 12 years old
• 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 resolving the content issues as content comes up through its annual review cycle, and this should be largely complete by December 2021.

We are not going to fix page titles, as the content is still understandable, and changing titles might cause compliance issues

How we tested this website

This website was and is currently being tested for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1 level A and level AA, and these tests have been carried out internally.

We used the Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM) approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test.

What we are doing to improve

We are actively looking to improve the accessibility on our website.

The improvements below have been identified on our current work schedule.

List of accessibility improvements

• Finish removing unclear links, like ‘click here’. Status: complete.
• Add text alternatives to images. Status: complete.
• Change background colour of website to grey in order to better serve dyslexic users. Status: complete.
• Target reading age of 12. Status: ongoing.

This statement was prepared on 12 September 2020 and updated on 16 September 2021.

This website was last tested on 30 April 2021. The test was carried out by NHS Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group.

Accessibility toolbar button guide

Google Translate

Use this to change the language our site appears in.

Text size

Use the plus and minus buttons to increase and decrease the font size displayed on the site. Text will be increased with each click until it is 40px large, or decreased until it is 8px small.

Highlight links

Use the yes button to highlight links. This will make all links yellow with a black background.

Change font

Use this to change the font the site appears in.

One of the fonts available in our toolbar is OpenDyslexic, a free font created to increase readability for readers with dyslexia. Find out more about OpenDyslexic.

Contrast

Use this to change the site’s colour scheme to:

• Black and white: white text with a black background.
• Black and yellow: yellow text with a black background.
• Grayscale
• Invert: inverts all elements to the opposite of their current colour.
• Reset: resets only colour contrast changes.

Reset all changes

Use this button to reset all changes. Please note that this will not reset the language if you have changed it, you will need to select the correct language from the dropdown.