This accessibility statement applies to www.elht.nhs.uk.

This website is run by East Lancashire Hospitals 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:

  • Change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • 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:

  • The text will not reflow in a single column when you change the size of the browser window
  • You cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
  • Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • Live video streams do not have captions
  • Some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
  • You cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
  • There are limitations on dropdown menus for keyboard use
  • There’s a limit to how far you can magnify the map on our ‘contact us’ page

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:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.

If you cannot view the map on our contact us page, call or email us for directions.

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:

Communications and Engagement team
Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital
Fusion House
Blackburn
Lancashire
BB1 2FD

or contact our website administrator:
Beckie Livesey
Joint Head of Digital Communications

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

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.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

East Lancashire Hospitals 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-compliance with the accessibility regulations

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

  • Board papers, some statutory information such as transactions, Trust policies and older patient information leaflets are provided in PDF format and do not meet accessibility standards. The structure of the content is not always available to assistive technology, which makes the content difficult to understand and navigate for users of screen readers (Info and relationships 1.3.1). The language is missing in some of the documents (Language of Page 3.1.1) and some page titles are missing (2.4.2 Page Titled). We know that in the documents, particularly the Board Papers, there are tables which are not correctly marked up and are not picked up properly by assistive technology (1.3.1 Tables) and some imagery is missing alternative text (1.1.1 Non Text Content).

    We are currently working on a plan to make current and relevant documents accessible by July 2024. Any documents we publish going forward will be created as HTML webpages or will meet accessibility standards if they are to be used. Alternatively, we will put the PDF on the HTML website if required with a note to say the document is not accessible. You can see the disproportionate burden statement below.
  • 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). We plan to add text alternatives for all images by July 2024. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
  • At 200% zoom and more, there is no function when selecting the magnifying glass (both with the mouse and keyboard). This will be fixed by September 2023.
     

    Non-accessible content - the content is not within the scope of the applicable legislation

    PDFs and other documents

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

    Many of our older PDFs do not meet accessibility standards. 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 the Annual Review 2016-2017.

    Live video

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

  Disproportionate burden

We believe that our approach to carrying out accessibility checks is reasonable but means that we will not do detailed accessibility checks on all of our websites.  This might mean accessibility issues on some of websites are not fixed.

However, the accessibility regulations say that we do not need to make a website accessible if doing so would impose a disproportionate burden on us.  We believe that carrying out more detailed checks and fixing documents, beyond what is set out above, would be a disproportionate burden.

You can read why we consider this to be a disproportionate burden below.

Navigation and accessing information

Heading structure

Not all of the headings follow a logical, numerical order that reflects the structure of the content of the page. Checking all pages on the website to fix this is a disproportionate burden.

PDF's and other documents

Where documents are no longer in active use, or no longer being updated, there is a high cost in terms of employee hours to convert. These documents are part of the public record, but no longer represent the current position, and interest is limited.

We always respond to requests for our publications in different formats on a case-by case basis, so accessible versions are available on demand, with a short lead-time. We consider that the costs of converting older documents where there is little evidence of demand would be a poor use of limited employee time and would represent a disproportionate burden on the organisation in terms of cost.

Please contact us to ask for alternative formats.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We regularly review what we are doing in terms of providing better accessibility to our websites. We are working through transferring all PDF documents onto HTML webpages as a priority.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 11 July 2023. It was last reviewed on 25 July 2023.

This website was last tested in July 2023. The test was carried out by Beckie Livesey, Head of Digital Communications on https://www.accessibilitychecker.org.