- We are committed to providing websites, intranets and online applications that are accessible to the widest possible audience. We work to ensure that our websites are accessible and usable by people of all abilities
- This website is bound by the guidelines of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) [external link] to ensure that the services we provide meet certain standards.
- We follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) v2.0, which have been devised by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) [external link]
- We are aiming to achieve double-A status, which is the UK Government’s target for public sector web sites.
We use a variety of images on this website. Not only do they make the website look more exciting, but they are helpful to those who may not be able to understand the language used on this site, for example those who speak English as a second language or who have learning difficulties.
We have made the images as small in size as possible, so that they do not cause pages to take a long time to load.
We have tried to not use animations and flashing images on the website, as these images may cause problems for people with epilepsy and attention-deficit disorders.
We have aimed to ensure that all images have appropriate ALT Text – this is so visually impaired web users, or those who choose not to have images displayed on the website can still find out what an image is meant to show.
If you are using Internet Explorer, you can view the ALT Text for an image by moving your mouse over it.
We have set up our tables to have relative width - that way they will resize themselves to fit your browser so you don't have to scroll to view them
We will only use tables on the site when they are the most appropriate way of presenting content and will ensure that they are coded correctly so that people using assistive technologies such as screen readers can access them.
We have set the majority of text on the website to be relative, so you can make it bigger or smaller if you need to.
You can increase or decrease the text size on the website (and also on any other websites you visit) by doing the following:
- Internet Explorer 7, 8 and 9: Go to view in your browser menu, select the text size option and choose the size of text you want. You can also zoom in and out of the page by pressing CTRL and + or CTRL and -
- Firefox: Go to view in your browser menu, select zoom and then zoom in or zoom out.
- Chrome: Click on the spanner icon at the top right of the browser and select zoom.
- Safari: Click on the page icon at the top right of the browser and select zoom.
- Netscape: Go to view in your browser menu, select the text size option and choose the size of text you want
- Opera: Click on the Opera button at the top left of your browser, select page and then zoom.
You can also resize text on all browsers by pressing CTRL and rolling your mousewheel.
We use headings on our web pages. Not only do headings break up text and make it easier to read, but it is also useful to people using screen readers who will be able to easily navigate between headings.
A style sheet is what we use on this website to determine how it looks. You can turn off the style sheet in your browser; this removes background images and makes the text black on a white background. You can then replace the style sheet with your own custom style sheet if required.
You can turn off the style sheet on this website (and also on any other websites you visit) by doing the following:
- Internet Explorer 8 and 9: Select the page menu which is on the right of the taskbar. Go to style and select no style.
- Internet Explorer 7: Unfortunately you cannot remove a style sheet in Internet Explorer, only replace it. To replace a style sheet, go to tools and internet options. Click the accessibility button at the bottom of the general tab. Select the format my documents using my style sheet button and browse for a stylesheet to upload.
- Firefox: Go to view in your browser menu and select page style. Select no style.
- Chrome: Unfortunately you cannot replace a style sheet in Chrome.
- Safari: Unfortunately you cannot remove a style sheet in Safari, only replace it
- Netscape: Go to the edit menu and select preferences. Select page styles and deselect the options for document css and my stylesheet
- Opera: Go to view in your browser menu and select style. Select user mode. Alternatively you can press ALT and P.
We have added videos and audio onto the website, in order to make the site more interactive.
We have ensured that videos which are on the website do not start up automatically when a page is loaded.
All videos with speech have transcripts or will be captioned.
Adult Social Care have created BSL videos for hard-of-hearing web users.
We use the UK Government defined access keys on this website. These access keys help people who may have difficulties using a pointing device (such as a mouse) access information on the website.
These access keys have been set so they do not conflict with other keyboard shortcuts.
S - Skip top navigation bar (this takes you to the bottom of the page)
1 - Home
4 - Search (this takes you to the search bar at the top of the page so you can type in your query)
0 - Access key details
The keyboard combination you will need to press will depend on the browser you are using:
- Internet Explorer 5+ for PC: Hold down the ALT key and press the number/letter of the access key, release both keys then press ENTER.
- Internet Explorer 5+ for Mac: Hold down the CTRL key and press the number/letter of the access key
- Firefox for PC: Hold down the ALT key and press the number/letter of the access key.
- Firefox for Mac: Hold down the CTRL key and press the number/letter of the access key.
- Chrome: Press ALT then press the number/letter of the access key
- Safari for PC: Press ALT then press the number/letter of the access key
- Safari for Mac: Press CTRL then press the number/letter of the access key
- Netscape 7: Hold down the ALT key and press the number/letter of the access key.
- Opera: Hold down the SHIFT key and press ESC, release both keys, then press the number/letter of the access key