We are committed to ensuring that https://southerntrust.hscni.net/ is accessible to everyone, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. This statement outlines our ongoing efforts to maintain a website that conforms to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and complies with relevant legislation in the European Union.
Our Commitment
We are continuously working towards making https://southerntrust.hscni.net/ an inclusive and user-friendly website. Our goal is to provide equal access to information and services for all visitors, including those with disabilities. We strive to ensure that our website is usable and accessible to the widest possible audience.
This website is administered by Business Services Organisation. 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.
Ongoing Improvements
We understand that accessibility is an ongoing process, and we are dedicated to continually improving our website’s accessibility. We regularly review our content and design to identify areas for enhancement.
Feedback and Contact Information
We value your feedback. If you encounter any accessibility barriers while using our website or have suggestions for improvement, please contact us.
We are committed to addressing any concerns and ensuring a positive user experience for all visitors.
Enforcement procedure
The Equalities Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) 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, please contact Equalities Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI)
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
We are committed to making this website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Compliance status
https://southerntrust.hscni.net/ is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
- There are images of text within the carousel.
- The expanding menus in our sidebar cannot be accessed using the keyboard
- Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader.
- The keyboard focus is not visible when initially tabbing to our list of hospitals on our homepage
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
We are increasing accessibility training and guidance for our web publishers. Any new content added to our site will be reviewed using online accessibly tools to ensure compliance.
We aim to resolve any outstanding accessibility issues by 31/12/2023.
PDFs and other documents
Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).
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.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 05/12/2023. It was last reviewed on 05/12/2023.
This website was last tested on 05/12/2023. We have done a basic check using in-house expertise, applying the international WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards
How we tested this website
We used an automated on-page accessibility tool (WAVE) to test a small selection of pages.
There may be other issues that our testing has not picked up. The website will be tested more thoroughly and systematically and this statement will be updated as required.