Website accessibility statement

Accessibility statement for the NHS Highland corporate website

This accessibility statement applies to this NHS Highland corporate website at https://www.nhshighland.scot.nhs.uk/

Our commitment to web accessibility standards

NHS Highland is committed to producing websites and web resources that can be accessed by all users. We're continuously working to make this site as accessible and usable as possible for all abilities and disabilities. This includes older audiences and those with visual, hearing, cognitive or motor impairments.

How accessible this website is

• We try to make our website text simple to understand, by using plain English wherever appropriate.
• We use subtitles for media content wherever possible.
• We rarely use data tables in page text, preferring in-line text layouts responsive to various display sizes.

We also try to make our site easy to use with assistive technologies by using:

• easier-to-read colours
• larger fonts
• keyboard-only navigation

This means you should be able to:

• change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser functionality
• zoom in up to 400 per cent 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
• interact with most of the website using a screen reader (including recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

Not every Adobe PDF and Microsoft Word format document linked to on this site is fully accessible to screen reader software. Given our available resources, we have made, and continue to make, these documents as accessible as we can. In summary, in these documents:

• properties such as language and title may be missing or inaccurate
• there is not always a complete logical structure based on tags and headings
• tables and lists may not always have headers or other elements identified in full
• images may not always have text alternatives

Wherever possible, we avoid publishing documents in PDF format. Instead we replace this content with (or create new content as) structured web pages instead, based on HTML and conforming to modern web accessibility standards.

Feedback and contact information

Reporting website accessibility problems 

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 the NHS Highland Web Manager:

• email nhsh.webmanager@nhs.scot
• phone 01463 704000 - ask for the duty press officer

Information in alternative forms

If you need information on this website in an alternative language or format, please see accessibility of our services.

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). They are an independent advice service which can advise you on what to do next.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

NHS Highland 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 (WCAG) 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:

1. Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Many of our PDFs do not contain the document default language

This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.1.1: Language of Page (Level A).
Work is ongoing to add a default language to documents, prioritised by frequency of public access.
Related to Technique PDF16: Setting the default language using the /Lang entry in the document catalog of a PDF document.

Many of our PDFs do not contain a relevant document title

This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.2: Page Titled (Level A).
Work is ongoing to repair document titles, prioritised by frequency of public access.
Related to Technique PDF18: Specifying the document title using the Title entry in the document information dictionary of a PDF document.

Many of our PDFs have figures, diagrams or tables without a text alternative

The information in them is not available to people using a screen reader.
This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1: Non-text Content (Level A).
Work is ongoing to add alternative text, prioritised by frequency of public access.
Related to Technique PDF1: Applying text alternatives to images with the Alt entry in PDF documents.

Many of our PDFs do not contain fully tagged content or the correct tab order

This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criteria:

• 1.3.2: Meaningful Sequence
• 2.1.1: Keyboard
• 2.4.3: Focus Order 

Work is ongoing to add tags and tab order, prioritised by frequency of public access.
Related to Technique PDF3: Ensuring correct tab and reading order in PDF documents.

Many of our PDFs do not identify headings, lists or data tables correctly

This means users using screen readers may not be able to follow the structure of a document, which may affect their ability to access and understand the information.
This does not meet WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships (Level A).
Work is ongoing to repair the structure of these documents, prioritised by frequency of public access.
Related to:

• Technique PDF6: Using table elements for table markup in PDF Documents
• Technique PDF9: Providing headings by marking content with heading tags in PDF documents
• Technique PDF20: Using Adobe Acrobat Pro's Table Editor to repair mistagged tables
• Technique PDF21: Using List tags for lists in PDF documents

2. Content is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDF documents 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, archive meeting papers.

Videos

Some of our older videos may not meet accessibility standards because they do not have captions. The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix videos published before 23 September 2020. We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Third party embedded content

Third party content which is embedded into our site may not fully conform to WCAG 2.1 AA. Embedded content we use comprises:

• YouTube video
• Vimeo video
• Google maps

What we're doing to improve accessibility

Internal reviews are conducted on content published to this website and the design system components used to construct the site. The accessibility of this website will be reviewed on a quarterly basis and we will update this statement with any relevant changes. Work is ongoing to:

• Publish content in HTML format wherever possible, rather than as PDF or other formats.
• Inform staff of the importance of accessibility, and guide them how to make their documents accessible.
• Review and update existing published PDF documents to make them fully accessible, prioritised by frequency of public access.
• Test newly-created documents for accessibility before they are published, and repair any issues - unless it is in the interest of our patients and staff to publish information before the standards can be met in full.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was first prepared on 9 February 2023.

It was last reviewed on 8 April 2024.

It will next be reviewed during August 2024.

This website was last tested during August and September 2023. Both manual and automated tests were carried out by the NHS Highland web manager and our third party website developers. To test, we used the tools:

• WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool
• deque Axe Accessibility Testing Tool - Chrome browser extension
• Accessibility Insights for Web - Chrome browser extension
• Adobe Acrobat Pro 2020 - Accessibility Checker tool

When deciding on a sample of pages to test, we chose based on:

• our most popular pages
• pages that gave an example of each template
• pages that included images and video

Web accessibility resources

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) develops standards and support materials to help understanding and implementation of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1:

• Understanding documents - detailed explanations for WCAG and success criteria.
• Techniques - examples of ways to meet WCAG. 

Create and verify PDF accessibility in Adobe Acrobat Pro

AbilityNet - help in making your computer work best for you, including "how to" guides to make your device easier to use if you have a disability.