This accessibility statement relates to all web content of the public website Children’s services located at https://children.nhslothian.scot/
Children’s services are run by NHS Lothian, which is committed to ensuring digital accessibility for people with disabilities. We are continually improving the user experience for everyone and applying the relevant accessibility standards.
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.
How accessible this website is
While we work hard to make our platforms and content accessible, we know some parts of these websites aren’t fully accessible yet.
Here is a brief list of content that is not currently accessible:
- Images: some images have duplicate ids and lack descriptions, you may experience difficulties accessing content;
- Videos: some video content do not have captions;
- PDF files: may not be accessible;
- Buttons: Some button elements are empty and have no accessible name – screen readers may not identify them.
- Body parts navigation: This page is being redesigned to accommodate all accessibility needs.
Reporting accessibility problems with this website
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact us by filling in the form below:
We will work to respond to you in at least 3 working days.
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).
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
NHS Lothian is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Conformance status
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. It defines three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA. Business Publications is partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 level AA, due to the non-compliances listed below.
Partially conformant means that some parts of the content do not fully conform to the accessibility standard.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
Most of the issues flagged in regards to accessibility are connected to the navigation process. This fails WCAG 2.1 AA Success Criteria 1.1, 1.2, 1.4 and 4.1.
We are working monthly to improve our website, currently, only 18% of the pages contain an accessibility issue.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
Some articles may have uploaded files in PDF format. Older PDFs documents may not meet accessibility standards. For example, they may not be structured to be accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2.
However, it passed on manual and automated tests, presenting a good level of accessibility with bookmarks, tab support, and reading order.
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 we publish will meet accessibility standards.
How we tested this website
This website was last tested in January 2022. The test was carried out by accessibility Passion4Social CIC (third-party).
We used this approach to test:
- Automated tests: We used 6 software tools to identify accessibility and navigation issues across the entire website;
- The web pages with the most issues were added to the manual testing;
- Using Google Analytics, we selected the pages most accessed by the users in 2021 and added them to manual testing;
- Manual tests: performed by three people with disabilities (blindness, global learning disabilities, and motor disabilities) and one professional web developer that run 3 simulation tools for dyslexia, low or partial vision, colour blindness, trembling movements, and keyboard navigation;
We tested the following pages:
- Home page: https://children.nhslothian.scot/
- Children Landing page: https://children.nhslothian.scot/children/
- ‘What happens each day’ page: https://children.nhslothian.scot/children/what-happens-each-day/
- ‘Navigate by Body part’ page: https://children.nhslothian.scot/children/navigation-by-body-part/
- Emergency Department page: https://children.nhslothian.scot/departments-services/?_sft_category=emergency
- Search function
As all pages are based on the same platform and template, they have not been tested individually but some samples have been selected from all of them.
Compatibility with browsers and assistive technology
Children’s services is designed to be compatible with the following assistive technologies:
- JAWS
- NVDA
- VoiceOver
- Android
- BlackBerry
- Chrome
- Edge
- Internet Explorer (from version 10)
- Firefox
- Opera
- Safari
- iPhone/iPad
- Microsoft Edge
Technical specifications
Accessibility of Children’s services relies on the following technologies to work with the particular combination of web browsers and any assistive technologies or plugins installed on your computer:
- HTML
- WAI-ARIA
- CSS
- JavaScript
These technologies are relied upon for conformance with the accessibility standards used.
This statement was prepared on 21st January 2022.
