Accessibility statement for NHS Lothian
This statement applies to content published on the nhslothian.scot domain.
This website is run by NHS Lothian. 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:
- zoom in up to 300% without problems
- navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
- navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
- use most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
How accessible this website is
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:
- most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
Each hospital, department or unit which publishes content on nhslothian.scot is responsible for making sure it meets the accessibility regulations.
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 contact us and tell us:
- the web address (URL) of the content
- your email address and name
- the format you need, for example, plain text, braille, BSL, large print or audio CD
Reporting accessibility problems with this website
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or you think we’re not meeting the accessibility requirements, contact us.
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
NHS Lothian 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 listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
- Many documents are in less accessible formats, for example PDF. Non-HTML documents published on or after 23 September 2018 must have an accessible format.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
PDFs and other documents
Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information, and forms published as Word documents. 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.
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 06 April 2023. It was last reviewed on 08 June 2023.
This website was last tested on 08 June 2023. The test was carried out by NHS Lothian.
We use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1 level A and level AA to test how accessible our website is.
We use in-built software checking tools at the point of page creation. We also test random sample of pages using tools, eg. Axe, Wave, Lighthouse.
