Accessibility

Accessibility Statement for the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust website

This statement applies to content on the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital website - https://www.lhch.nhs.uk

This website is run by the Communications Department at Liverpool Heart and Chest 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:

• zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
• navigate some of the website using speech recognition software

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand. In areas, there may be medical terminology used.

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. For example:

• many documents in PDF format are not accessible
• some pages and document attachments are not written in plain English
• some images do not have a text alternative that clearly describe the information or function represented by them
• site accordions (drop downs) are not fully accessible to screen readers
• some heading elements are not consistent

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

• email PFSTeam@lhch.nhs.uk      
• call 0151 600 1517 or 0151 600 1257

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.

If for any reason you cannot view the map on our Maps & Directions page, please contact us for directions.

Reporting accessibility problems with this site

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 the Trust’s Communication Department by email to corporatecommunications@lhch.nhs.uk

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

Liverpool Heart and Chest 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

Youtube Embeds - Whole site

• There are aria labels used on certain elements within the Youtube embed that get flagged by the AXE dev tool as inaccessible but these can’t be changed. Lancashire teaching hospital haven’t mentioned this in accessibility statement.

Accordions added via WYSIWYG editor

• Accordions added through the WYSIWYG editor are inaccessible. Site accordions (drop downs) are not fully accessible to screen readers

We aim to correct the above issues by 31st December 2024.

Images

Some images on this website contain text - WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.5. or WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content).

Some of the images on our site are complex diagrams where suitable alt text is not possible. A list of these images is available here. By December 2024 we intend to have reviewed all of these images, and where possible will have converted them to accessible format, used a different visualisation method or added detailed description text to the page.

We plan to correct the above issues by 31st December 2024.

Video

Video content uses automated closed captioning and transcription, and this is often inaccurate. By 31st December 2024 we will review these captions and ensure their accuracy manually

Disproportionate burden

Documents that are supplied to us by other organisations will not be edited to make them accessible.

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We provide a text relay service for people who are D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

Some of our offices have audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

Find out by visiting the contact us page.

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

• PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs containing important patient safety information or about our services.

By 31 December 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 other downloadable documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

• Live video

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

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 1st September 2023.

It will be reviewed by 1 September 2024.

This website was last tested on 04/09/23 by Cube Creative using Axe Accessibility Tools.