Accessibility statement for the Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation 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 have made the website text as simple as possible to understand but recognise that not all pages are currently written in plain English. 

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:

• most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
• some videos do not have captions

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format such as accessible PDF, large print, easy read or Braille, please contact us.

• Email: communications.barnsley@nhs.net
• Telephone: 01226 432995

We will consider your request and reply to you within 5 working days.

If you need assistance in finding your way around our hospital, please visit the AccessAble website. 

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.barnsley@nhs.net. 

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 can provide interpreting and translation services. This can be in the form of face-to-face, video or telephone.

If you need an interpreter, or information about the care you are receiving in the language or format of your choice, please contact the relevant service or department directly. 

Technical information about this website's accessibility

The Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation 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-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Some PDF documents produced after 23 September 2018 are not fully accessible to screen reader software.

This includes:

• 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 reading order of the content is not always logical, which means some content does not make sense when read out by text-to-speech software (Meaningful sequence 1.3.2)
• images do not always have text alternatives, which means some content is not available when using text-to-speech software (Text alternatives 1.1.1).

We are working towards making PDFs accessible by March 2024, however the volume of PDFs that would need converting is significant. 

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. By March 2024, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

Some videos do not include subtitles (Captions (Prerecorded) 1.2.2). We are working towards adding caption to existing videos by June 2024. All new videos will include captions.

Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information (Non-text content 1.1.1).

Disproportionate burden

Some documents on this website are provided in PDF format which might not be compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard. We are committed to ensuring PDFs added to this website in future will be assessed for accessibility prior to publishing, but have not assessed all existing documents during our migration to this new website platform. 

Some videos shared on this website might not have closed captions included. We are working through our back catalogue to ensure all relevant video content is compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard. Please let us know if you are unable to access any particular video so we can prioritise its review.

Content that's not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. By March 2024, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

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.

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

What we're doing to improve accessibility

Work is continuing to remove documents which aren't needed, and don’t meet accessibility standards, as soon as possible. Where information is still required, we plan to republish it in HTML format.

There are some documents designed for printing. These include our annual report and Barnsley Hospital News. We'll continue to offer these as PDFs together with a HTML page that includes a summary of the document.

We use online tools to perform a readability test and carry out basic accessibility checks when uploading new content to the website. Our aim is to conduct accessibility audits every year.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 13 March 2023 following a self-assessment of this website's accessibility compliance using manual checks, and automated tools, including Axe and Lighthouse to test an example of each template used across the site.

The statement was last reviewed on 30 August 2023.