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Home > Accessibility Statement for Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust

Accessibility Statement for Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust

This page provides more information on accessibility. Here, you’ll find our accessibility statement, some supporting information on accessibility and more.

This accessibility statement applies to www.alderhey.nhs.uk

This website is run by Alder Hey Children’s 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:

  • 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
  • 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.
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:

  • the text will not reflow in a single column when you change the size of the browser window
  • you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
  • most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • live video streams do not have captions
  • some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
  • you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
  • there’s a limit to how far you can magnify the map on our ‘contact us’ page

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:

If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, call or email us [email protected] for directions.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

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 our patient experience team at [email protected].

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).

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 offices 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 [email protected]

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Alder Hey Children’s 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 2.2 AA standard, due to examples of pdfs on our website such as our Annual Reports, Board Papers and other legally required publications listed on our Publications page and on other pages on our website.

Non-accessible content

The following issues where identified with our 2023/24 Annual Report following an audit from the Government Digital Service (GDS):

  • WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) – Poor colour contrast makes it difficult for someone with sight loss to see the content properly. If there is a big difference between the background and foreground colours it should be much easier to see the difference between them.
  • WCAG 1.3.1 Info and Relationships: Content is not tagged – Assistive technologies like screen readers rely on correct markup within documents to understand and show the correct information to a user. Content in documents should be tagged to provide information about structured content such as headings, tables, lists, paragraphs and form fields.

Plans are in place to fix these issues by April 2025.

An internal accessibility audit was conducted in November 2024 which identified the following issues:

  • Alder Centre Leaflet
    • There is no logical structure to the reading order to this document
    • The title falls back to the document title
    • The colour contrast fails WCAG criteria with the cream text, blue/green background and and green text with blue/green background
    • Tab order is not consistent with structure order
    • Alternative text is not available for some images
  • Trust Board Meeting – 5th October 2023
    • The document is not tagged as a PDF
    • Text language is not specified
    • The title falls back to the document title
    • Not all page content is tagged
    • Not all annotations are tagged
    • Tab order is not consistent with structure order
    • Alternative text is not available for some images
    • Other elements alternative text is not available for some figures
    • Not all tables have headers in place
    • Tables do not contain the same number of columns in each row and rows in each column
    • No appropriate heading nesting in place

There are other PDFs on this website, such as Board Papers and Disclosure Logs, that are not fully accessible according to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 (level AA). Not all of these PDF documents are essential to providing our services.

Plans are in place to provide accessible HTML versions of these PDFs by December 2025.

There are also plans in place to add alternative text for all images by December 2025. When we publish new content, our use of images will include alt tags.

Disproportionate burden

In January 2025, we performed a disproportionate burden assessment to determine which issues would not be fixed on this website due to the associated costs and/or resources needed. As a result of this assessment, we feel that fixing the below issues would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. If you would like a copy of the assessment, you can request this by emailing [email protected].

Navigation and accessing information

There’s no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option).

It’s not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content.

It’s not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping.

Interactive tools and transactions

Some of our interactive forms are difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, because some form controls are missing a ‘label’ tag.

Our forms are built and hosted through third-party software and ‘skinned’ to look like our website.

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with navigation and accessing information, and with interactive tools and transactions. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when the supplier contract is up for renewal, likely to be in 2028.

Legally required documents

Annual Reports previous to 2023/24 and monthly Board Papers up to 2024/25 are presented on this site in a PDF format that is not fully accessible. We believe that the cost of fixing all of these Annual Reports and converting the Board Papers to be fully accessible is a disproportionate burden on Alder Hey resources. These documents are available in alternative formats upon request by contacting [email protected].

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

PDFs and other documents

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. For example, we do not plan to fix Annual Reports previous to this date which are presented as a PDF, and other legally required documents, but you can request an alternative format and we will look to provide this, if possible.

Live video

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

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have plans to make improvements to the accessibility of this website. We aim to have all of our Patient Information Leaflets as a web page by the end of March 2025.

Plans are also in place to review all PDFs presented on the website and either remove them, or present the content in HTML accessible version on the webpage. We expect this work to be complete by December 2025.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 14th June 2023. It was last reviewed on 31st January 2025.

This website was last tested on 27th November 2024. The test was carried out by Mixd.

We selected a sample of pages to test based on average use, volume of traffic, and content type. We tested the following pages as they contain our main features used across the site:

If you would like to access the full accessibility test report, please contact us.

Accessible Information Standard

The Accessible Information Standard aims to make sure that our families/carers who have a disability, impairment or sensory loss get information that they can access and understand, and any communication support that they need from Alder Hey..


As part of the Accessible Information Standard, Alder Hey must do five things. We must:

  1. Ask our families/carers if they have any information or communication needs and find out how to meet their needs.
  2. Record those needs clearly and in a set way.
  3. Highlight or flag the person’s file or notes so it is clear that we have information or communication needs and how to meet those needs.
  4. Share information about people’s information and communication needs with other providers of NHS and adult social care, when we have consent or permission to do so.
  5. Take steps to ensure that our families/carers receive information which they can
    access and understand and receive communication support if they need it.

What does the Standard include?

The Standard says that our families/carers with a disability, impairment or sensory loss should:

  • Be able to contact, and be contacted by, Alder Hey services in accessible way, for example via email or text message.
  • Receive information and correspondence in formats they can read and understand, for example in audio, braille, easy read, or large print.
  • Be supported by a communication professional at appointments if this is needed to support conversation, for example, a British Sign Language interpreter.
  • Get support from health and care staff and organisations to communicate, for example to lip-read or use a hearing aid.

Accessible Information Standard Useful Links

For more information/guidance around the standard, you can visit the NHS England website.

This information is available in large print, other formats, and
languages on request. Email: [email protected]

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