Accessibility Statement

This statement applies to www.gift-surg.ac.uk, the primary website of the Guided Instrumentation for Fetal Therapy & Surgery (GIFT-Surg) project.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use our website to find, read and understand the content.

USING THE GIFT-SURG WEBSITE

In order to ensure that all of our visitors can use our website, our pages aim to meet Level-AA standard of WCAG 2.1. This includes elements such as:

  • Alt text for images and providing non-visual alternatives where appropriate
  • The website can be used with a screen reader
  • Content is structured, ordered and labelled appropriately.
  • A range of devices (e.g. mobile phone, tablet, laptop) can be used to access the website.

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

TECHNICAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE ACCESSIBILITY OF THE GIFT-SURG WEBSITE

GIFT-Surg is committed to making the www.gift-surg.ac.uk website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. We work to achieve and maintain WCAG 2.1 AA standards, but it is not always possible for all our content to be accessible.

We know some parts of the website aren’t fully accessible, and the complexity and volume of content available presents difficulties in identifying all accessibility issues.

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Users may experience issues depending on the course/area they are accessing. For example:

  • Element not highlighted on focus (WCAG 2.1 2.4.7): the majority of these issues has been resolved by the website’s developer, but some remain. This is because some of the link styles are set in the parent theme css, some in the page builder, and some in the child theme stylesheet.
  • Some link text is used for multiple different destinations (WCAG 2.1 2.4.4): on the Key publications page, there are instances of the same text (Visit the open access link to the publication) linking to different destinations.
  • Not all video has captions, text or audio description (WCAG 2.1 1.2): pre-recorded video and audio published before 23 September 2020 are not within the scope of the accessibility regulations. After 23 September 2020, we are responsible for ensuring that new content we supply meets accessibility requirements.
  • Third party platforms: we sometimes create content which is hosted on third party platforms. This includes content we create on social media and videos hosted on our YouTube channel. We are responsible for ensuring the content we supply meets accessibility requirements; however, we are not responsible for the accessibility of the platform itself.

PDFS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

Any PDFs and Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU CAN’T ACCESS PARTS OF THE GIFT-SURG WEBSITE

If you need information on the GIFT-Surg website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, email rozi.harsanyi@kcl.ac.uk. We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 7 days.

REPORTING ACCESSIBILITY PROBLEMS WITH THE GIFT-SURG WEBSITE

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of the GIFT-Surg website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, email rozi.harsanyi@kcl.ac.uk.

ESCALATION PROCEDURE

If you need to escalate your issue further, contact Valentina Vitiello, Specialist Technical Operations Manager.  You can expect an acknowledgement of your issue within 7 days and a full reply within 14 days. If your complaint raises complex issues that cannot be answered within 14 days, we will keep you informed of progress until we can fully respond.

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).

HOW WE TESTED THIS WEBSITE

This website was last tested on 7 December 2020. The test was carried out internally, using a quality assurance tool across all pages, followed by a manual check of all issues.

We tested our website, www.gift-surg.ac.uk.

WHAT WE’RE DOING TO IMPROVE ACCESSIBILITY

In addition to our plan to fix known issues, we continue to work on the content and structure of the GIFT-Surg website.

This statement was prepared on 7 December. It was last updated on 8 December.