Accessibility Policy

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Accessibility statement for blmkhealthandcarepartnership.org

This accessibility statement applies to the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Health and Care Partnership website: blmkhealthandcarepartnership.org.

The website is managed by NHS Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board and is hosted by Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit (NHS ML) and Arden and Greater East Midlands Commissioning Support Unit (AGEM CSU).

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website and we have designed it to be accessible. This website has ReciteMe accessibility toolbar installed. This means that you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser or device settings
  • zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using a keyboard or 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.

The website has ReciteMe accessibility toolbar installed providing additional accessibility tools and features.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact the NHS Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board communications team, email: blmkicb.communications@nhs.net

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, email: blmkicb.communications@nhs.net

We’ll consider your request and aim to get back to you within five 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 contact us with a complaint and you are not happy with our response, please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
 

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.

Our buildings have audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit, we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter. Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

NHS Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board 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 2.2 AA standard due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content:

The following items are currently non-compliant, although we are actively working to address these issues as part of an ongoing programme to improve the accessibility of this website.

  • Some older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software.
  • Some diagrams and/or infographics are not fully accessible.
  • Some links and images that are not self-explanatory to screen reader users.

Other items which may affect the accessibility of this website include:

Google Language Translator

  • Please note that not all text may be translated accurately or be translated at all. We are not responsible for incorrect or inaccurate translations.

PDFs

  • The structure of the content is not always available to assistive technology, which makes the content difficult to understand and navigate for users of screen readers (Info and relationships 1.3.1)
  • The reading order of the content is not always logical, which means some content does not make sense when read out by text-to-speech software (Meaningful sequence 1.3.2)
  • Images do not always have text alternatives, which means some content is not available when using text-to-speech software (Text alternatives 1.1.1)

Embedded YouTube videos

  • For Android users, Google recommends watching YouTube videos directly within the YouTube app where you will find further accessibility features.
  • For Apple users, Google recommends following the apple.com/accessibility guide for further information – https://www.apple.com/accessibility/

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. We do have plans to remove or replace some of the PDFs with more accessible content alternatives. Wherever possible, we avoid PDFs. Instead, we create content as structured web pages in HTML.

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 older videos.

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.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 8 January 2024 and was last reviewed on 8 January 2024.

Our website’s accessibility status is reviewed on a regular basis. This website was last tested by NHS ML on 5 January 2024.

We have tested the homepage, content pages and custom pages (searches, custom functionality) by checking the following:

  • Change colours, contrast levels and fonts.
  • Zoom in up to 400% 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.
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