Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to content published on the royalcornwallhospitals.nhs.uk domains. It does not apply to any other domains with associated names or subdomains. Please view individual sites for applicable accessibility statements.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. That is why we have built and integrated a bespoke accessibility toolbar to help users use our site. View our guide on how to effectively use this software.

The Web Team at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust manages this website. It is designed to be used by as many people as possible. The text should be clear and simple to understand. You should be able to:

  • Change colours, contrast levels, and fonts
  • Increase font size
  • 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

Some of our content is technical and is sometimes aimed at medical professionals, we use technical terms where there is no easier wording we could use without changing what the text means.

If you have a disability, AbilityNet has advice to help you make your device easier to use.

How accessible this website is

The Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust is committed to making its websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

This website is fully compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.

Since early 2021 we have worked hard on making sure our site is accessible to all. This has involved reviewing content, refining the navigation and making technical changes to ensure we are confirming to WCAG 2.1. We are happy to be currently regarded as one of the most accessible NHS Trusts by specialists such as Silktide Index.

Since the beginning of 2021 we have fixed hundreds of issues allowing screen-readers and keyboard only users to navigate our site much more smoothly.

With this in mind, we are always looking to improve accessibility and there are some parts of this website which are not fully accessible. For examples, please see our ‘non-accessible content’ heading further down the page.

Non-accessible content

Identified issues:

  • Many documents are not accessible in several ways including missing text alternatives and missing document structure. We are looking into making all our documents more accessible.
  • Some pages and document attachments are not clearly written, or have a reading age higher than 16 (WCAG 2.0 AAA 3.1.5).
  • Some interactive controls are not larger than 44×44 pixels (WCAG 2.1 AAA 2.5.5).
  • Some elements do not have focus styles; specifically the links within the Care Opinion and CQC widgets on the home page (WCAG 2.0 AA 2.4.7).

This is not a comprehensive list as we are still identifying some accessibility issues.

Issues with technology

The vast majority of our website works correctly on any web technology.

However, this website no longer supports Internet Explorer, as this browser is now at the end of its lifecycle. Read more information about the withdrawal of IE support.

Partial Compliance

Our site makes use of third party tools and widgets. Whilst we make all efforts to ensure any third party software is compliant to at least WCAG AA standard, this isn’t always possible. On our homepage, we are required to use the ‘Care opinion’ widget. This widget fails the following success criteria for ‘Focus Visible’ (WCAG 2.1 AA 2.4.7). We have fed this issue back and will update this statement to reflect any changes.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on the 3rd April 2023. We used multiple resources to prepare this statement, with the main template being the Model Accessibility Statement.

The statement was last reviewed on the 31st July 2023.

How we tested this website

In order to ensure our site is compliant and user friendly for as many people as possible, we have had extensive manual and automated testing carried out by Test Partners (This link will take you away from our site). We have used tools such as SortSite and Wave to ensure compliance, as well as acquiring software from Silktide to constantly monitor our site for compliance.

We constantly test this website for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1 level A, level AA, and AAA where possible; we carry out these tests internally.

Feedback and contact information

Reporting accessibility or technical problems

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website.

If you find any problems or accessibility issues that are not listed on this page, please contact rcht.citswebteam@nhs.net.

Accessibility, content, and media enquiries

If you have any questions about accessibility compliance, page content, or media enquiries generally please contact the Communications Team.

Policies, guidelines, and documents

If you have any questions about our policies, guidelines, or documents please contact the Corporate Records Manager.

Enforcement procedure

If you contact us with a complaint and you’re not happy with our response contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

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’).

Request content in an accessible format

If you need information in a different format, please contact the General Office Team and let us know. Please provide the following details:

  • the web address (URL) of the content
  • your name and email address
  • the format you need. For example, audio CD, braille, BSL or large print, accessible PDF

For more information, please view our Accessible Information Standard page.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We plan to identify and fix issues on a continuous basis.

How to change the language on our website

To change the language on our website, please click on the right-most item of our top-right menu. This is distinguished by the current language and the associated flag – the default should be ‘English’ with a picture of the Union Jack.

Help using our accessibility toolbar

We built our accessibility toolbar in-house to provide users with the features described below.

To use the toolbar, please click on ‘Accessibility tools’ in the top-right menu of our website.

Text Size

We have 4 settings for font size on this website. Once the toolbar is open, there will be a choice of ‘Small’, ‘Original’, ‘Large’, and ‘Extra large’. Simply click on whichever one you prefer to change the text size on the website. Your preferences will be saved. To revert this, click ‘Reset all changes’.

Highlight links

Use the ‘yes’ button to highlight links. This will make all links yellow with a black background. To revert, either click the ‘no’ button, or the ‘reset all changes’ button.

Change font

Use this to change the font the site appears in.

One of the fonts available in our toolbar is OpenDyslexic, a free font created to increase readability for readers with dyslexia. 

Find out more about OpenDyslexic.

Contrast

Use this to change the site’s colour scheme to:

  • Black and white: white text with a black background.
  • Black and yellow: yellow text with a black background.
  • Grayscale
  • Invert: inverts all elements to the opposite of their current colour.
  • Reset: resets only colour contrast changes.

Reset all changes

Use this button to reset all changes you have made using the toolbar.


Can I save my settings?

Yes. The settings will automatically save when you navigate to another page, or if you leave the site and come back.

Refreshing the page therefore does not reset to default, you must use the ‘reset all changes’ button on the toolbar.

Page last reviewed: 13 March 2024

Alert: Visiting restrictions are in place due to Norovirus

See our news article for more information.

Text Size

Change font

Contrast