Accessibility statement
This accessibility statement applies to https://www.southwestyorkshire.nhs.uk/
This website is run by South West Yorkshire Partnership Teaching 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 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)
We also try to use text that people can understand easily, we aim for the reading age of a 12 year old Sometimes there are technical terms used in the text on the site, we use this when there is no easier wording, we can use without changing what the text means
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:
- Some of our older images are missing Alt tags or descriptions
- We have many documents which are in PDF format and have not been designed for accessibility
- live video streams do not have captions
- Some of the text in our microsites has poor contrast definition
Feedback and contact information
If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: The communications team by emailing comms@swyt.nhs.uk .
If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:
- email comms@swyt.nhs.uk
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 14 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
South West Yorkshire Partnership Teaching 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
The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard.
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to: the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content that is not accessible is listed below together with an explanation.
Some controls change appearance when they are selected
Not all controls on the page – including links, buttons, and fields – show when they have been selected by the keyboard.
Ensure pages don’t scroll in two dimensions on small screens
Some of our pages have content that does not fit on the screen without having to scroll in 2 dimensions.
Alternative text for images inside links is missing
Some of our images that are links to other content do not have alternative text which helps describe the purpose of the link.
Some text does not have sufficient contrast
Some of our text does not sufficiently contrast with its background colour so that people with moderate visual impairments can read it.
Forms
Some forms are missing text labels which means people using screen readers may not be able to understand the form controls.
Links
We are aware of the following issues within the links on our site:
- Some link text doesn’t make sense when read on its own (click here)
- Some PDFs contain links to pages that no longer exist – we do not intend to resolve these as they are a disproportionate burden for us to be able to scan and reproduce the content
We scan the website daily for broken links and fix them as soon as we can.
Board papers accessibility
Board papers are published on our website as large PDF documents, often running to several hundred pages. These documents include scanned images, tables, diagrams, and other complex content sourced from multiple services across the Trust.
They must be uploaded ahead of scheduled public meetings to meet legal requirements. Due to tight timeframes and financial constraints, it is not currently feasible to convert these documents into accessible formats at the point of publication.
We are actively exploring alternative ways to improve accessibility in the future.
If you need any of this information in a different format, please contact us at comms@swyt.nhs.uk.
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 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
We plan to add text alternatives for all images by October 2025. When we publish new content, we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
Disproportionate burden
Some of our PDFS and documents are not accessible despite being produced after 23 September 2018. Many of these are very large documents. We conducted a disproportionate burden assessment in December 2024 which can be found on this webpage
From March 2025
- We will not add any new documents that have not been assessed for accessibility to our website
- We plan to train our editors to produce PDFS that are accessible if they are to be published to the website
- We will ensure that the information that is on PDF’s which is sometimes intended for print only also has the information available in another format that is accessible
- We will remove and replace any non-compliant documents that we believe will benefit users with accessible versions
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.
Live video
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
We are actively looking to improve the accessibility of our website.
We will do this by
- Designing and building any new content to level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.2) and prioritising any remedial work on existing content to meet these standards
- Seek to use the NHS Design System with a focus on website accessibility using the methods researched by NHS Digital
- Engaging with users that have different accessibility requirements to help us test our content
- Audit our content layouts and make changes where different formats would be better
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 28 March 2018. It was last reviewed on 25 February 2025.
This website was last tested on 13 October 2022 against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.
The most viewed pages were tested using automated testing tools by our website admin, the tool we used was Silktide.
This website was audited on 5 December 2024 by the Government Digital Service Accessibility monitoring team and a report was produced. The full report can be found on the accessibility monitoring service website by following this link
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