Accessibility

HOW THIS WEBSITE MEETS YOUR ACCESSIBILITY NEEDS
At Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, we want as many people as possible to be able to use and benefit from this website (www.gmhsc.org.uk). So we’re committed to making it accessible for people with different needs.

That means, for example, you can expect to be able to:

  • 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)
  • Read and understand the text clearly

AbilityNet offers advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

What isn’t fully accessible?
You may find that some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • The text will not always reflow into a single column when you change the size of description
  • Some text is contained within images in the browser window
  • You can’t modify the line height or spacing of text
  • Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • Older video content doesn’t contain captions or audio descriptions
  • Some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
  • Not all images have a text alternative

Feedback and contact information
If you need any information from this website in a different format — such as accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille — then get in touch by emailing gm.hsccomms@nhs.net

Let us know if you have a issue with this website
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any issue not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please get in touch by emailing gm.hsccomms@nhs.net

TECHNICAL INFORMATION ABOUT THIS WEBSITE’S ACCESSIBILITY
Greater Manchester Health & Social Care Partnership 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
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).

Some images on the site contain text so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.5 (images of text).

By February 2021 we plan to:

  • Add text alternatives for all images. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards
  • Make sure that almost all content contained in images is also displayed as plain text or added to the image text description. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards

The site uses Google ReCaptcha to prevent spam entries to the contact form. There are accessibility issues with ReCaptcha, particularly for deafblind users, who find the visual and audio tests hard to pass. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (recaptcha).

Headers are not always used appropriately across the site so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (headers).

Increasing the size of text by 200% on our site, either via the zoom control or a browser’s inbuilt text zoom, sometimes causes the site’s structure to break. Increasing text spacing also causes problems with the site’s navigation bar. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4 (resized text).

Form status messages and search results do not have the correct label to tell assistive technology what they are, so may not be recognised. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.3 (status messages).

By August 2021 we plan to:

  • Replace ReCaptcha with a spam prevention system that does not impact accessibility standards
  • Make sure the correct headers are present in the HTML on each page. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of headers meets accessibility standards
  • Make changes to the site’s markup and styling so all text containers stretch to fit their containing text
  • Add appropriate labels where a form outputs a result or a status message

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.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Video
Videos are not accompanied by an audio description designed for people with visual impairments and not all of our videos have captions that meet accessibility standards.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix videos published before 23 September 2020. Any new videos we publish will meet accessibility standards.

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).

Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 26th January 2021. It was last reviewed on 26th January 2021.

This website was last tested on 21st August 2020. The test was carried out by Neo using the W3C Website Accessibility Evaluation Report Generator as a structure to carry out the audit and the selected pages were assessed using two automated accessibility testing tools, code review and manual user testing.

We generated a sample of pages by selecting all pages linked directly from the homepage, all hub site home pages, pages that encapsulated all website functionality and two randomly generated pages.

For a copy of the full accessibility test report please get in touch by emailing gm.hsccomms@nhs.net

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