This accessibility statement is for the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care System and the Integrated Care Board websites.

Herefordshire and Worcestershire NHS are committed to making our [website(s)/mobile application(s), as appropriate] accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

We are aware that there are some outstanding accessibility issues with the site, and we are in the process of working with our website provider to rectify these issues.

If you have a disability, search AbilityNet for "how to" guides to make your device easier to use.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. This means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser functionality
  • zoom in without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard (including skip to content or skip to main navigation)
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader

Most images on our website have alternative text attributes (alt text). If an image is used for simply decorative purposes, the text attribute for the image is left empty in line with accepted best practice and are marked as decorative.

We also try to make the website text as simple as possible to understand.

Compliance status

These websites are partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible.

  1. Many of our PDFs are not fully accessible to screen reader software (1.3.1 Info and Relationships, 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence and 1.1.1 Text alternatives).
  2. Some online forms are not easy for screen readers to navigate (1.1 Perceivable – Text alternatives)
  3. Some links and images are not self-explanatory to screen reader users (2.1.1 Keyboard)
  4. Links to websites, software or videos that we do not own or manage and so cannot guarantee their accessibility
  5. Some videos don’t have captions (1.2.2 Captions (Pre-recorded))
  6. Some carousel and collapsible components may not be fully logical to screen reader users (2.1.1 Keyboard)
  7. Colour contrast makes it hard to read the text in some parts of the website (1.4.3 Colour contrast minimum)
  8. Some pages and documents are not written in plain English and have the use of abbreviations (3.1.4 Abbreviations)
  9. Some tables do not have a caption element to describe their content (1.3.1 Info and relationships)
  10. Some tables do not have clear headings to describe their content (2.4.6 Headings and labels)
  11. The focus order on some of the pages is jumbled up and do not flow in a sensible manner when used by non-sighted or keyboard only users. (1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence fails)
  12. Some pages have a considerable amount of text and complex language (3.1.5 Reading Level fail)
  13. Some links do not have descriptive text (e.g., using "Click here" or "Read more”) (2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context)
  14. Headings are either missing or used incorrectly (e.g., skipping heading levels, using them for styling instead of structure). (2.4.6 Headings and Label and 1.3.1 Info and Relationships)

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs do not meet accessibility standards. 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

Videos

Some of our older videos do not meet accessibility standards because they do not have captions. The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix videos published before 23 September 2020. We are actively working to add captions to the most popular videos and all the new videos we are creating

From external websites 

Some parts of this site link to or use content provided by other websites and we cannot guarantee that these resources are fully accessible.

Online maps

Online maps such as Google maps, mapping services are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Live video

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

Feedback and Contact information

If you have an accessibility query you can give feedback about the website, including:

  • if you have any problems accessing information or using this website
  • if you have any positive feedback about this website's accessibility

Please email hw.comms@nhs.net where your email will be picked up and responded to by the Communications Team as soon as possible,

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 on legislation.gov.uk (the "accessibility regulations").

If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS)

Preparation of this accessibility statement     

The website has been developed during a period from December 2021 to May 2022 by the NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire's Communications Team working with their appointed digital partner Frank Design, a digital agency specialising in the development of websites for the NHS. We have tried to make sure that this website is available to as broad an audience as possible.

This statement was prepared on 24 May 2022 and reflects the status of the site following accessibility tests carried out by Frank Design throughout the preceding design and development process.

This statement was last reviewed on 12 Feruary 2025 and led to changes in the accessibility statement.

Manual testing

To do our team testing we chose a selection of home pages, document pages, custom pages and a typical form to offer a cross-section of page types within the website.

Manual testing reports

Accessibility Audit Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB website December 2024

Accessibility Audit Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICS website December 2024

Alternative formats

We've designed our content to be as accessible as possible.

If you need information on this website in a different format, like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or Braille, please email hw.comms@nhs.net

We'll consider your request and get back to you.