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Accessibility statement

Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This accessibility statement applies to the Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) website.

This website is run by Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW). We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • zoom in up to 200% 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 have also made the website text as simple as possible to understand. 

AbilityNet has advice about 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:

  1. Some pages contain text that has poor colour contrast 
  2. Some pages contain headings that are not logically ordered
  3. Some pages are not fully usable with the keyboard
  4. Some pages have an illogical focus order

 

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 content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons:

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

1. When navigating the page with a keyboard, it's not possible to tab to, and interact, with the links on some pages because this particular content lazy loads after the tab has already gone past that section. You can only tab backwards to access it. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible

 
We hope to have these issues fixed by the end of October 2025

Disproportionate burden

We have prepared a disproportionate burden assessment to explain why we have PDFs published on our website that are not fully accessible, and how we plan to make improvements.

These PDFs are primarily technical or corporate, including:

  • Board or committee papers
  • Performance reports which may contain complex reporting/statistical data
  • Policies and procedures produced since September 2018
  • Publications linked from our Freedom of Information pages – including disclosure logs
  • Publications which may have been professionally produced since September 2018 which would have to be fixed by a third party

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.

 

Content that is not within scope of accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we occasionally have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, patient information leaflets and forms published as Word documents.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they are not essential to providing our services. We do not plan to fix any PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018, for example Board and Committee Papers, Health Board policies and procedure documentation or statutory documentation such as Annual Reports.  However, we will endeavour to make any new PDFs or Word documents accessible wherever possible.

We occasionally publish PDFs which contain ‘transcripts/scanned manuscripts or handwritten notes’ for example in FOI requests - these are outside of scope and will not be fixed.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live audio or video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.  However, we will always aim to provide subtitled versions of pre-recorded videos produced.

 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was first prepared in January 2019.

The statement was last reviewed in April 2025. It will be reviewed again in October 2025.

This website was last tested in April 2025. A sample of pages were tested by an internal team using a mixed method that included:

  • using automated accessibility checkers Axe DevTools and Silktide to review web pages, and Microsoft accessibility checker and Adobe Acrobat to review documents
  • manual review against the WCAG 2.2 guidelines

 

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: dhcw-enquiries@wales.nhs.uk. We will consider your request and get back to you in 10 working days. 

If you cannot view the map on our 'Our Offices’ page, email us for directions: dhcw-enquiries@wales.nhs.uk.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements, please email dhcw-enquiries@wales.nhs.uk.

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 are not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

 

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