Accessibility statement for Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust website

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

This website is run by Lancashire and South Cumbria 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 300% 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:

  • Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • Live video streams do not have captions
  • At 200% and 400% zoom keyboard navigation is not always possible and some content is cut off the screen
  • Not all links are accessible by a screen reader

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:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.

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:

Communications Team
Sceptre Point
Sceptre Way
Bamber Bridge
Lancashire
PR5 6AW

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.

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

Lancashire and South Cumbria 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 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

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

  • Board papers, some statutory information such as transactions, and certifications are provided in PDF format and do not meet accessibility standards. The structure of the content is not always available to assistive technology, which makes the content difficult to understand and navigate for users of screen readers (Info and relationships 1.3.1). The language is missing in some of the documents (Language of Page 3.1.1) and some page titles are missing (2.4.2 Page Titled). We know that in the documents, particularly the Board Papers, there are tables which are not correctly marked up and are not picked up properly by assistive technology (1.3.1 Tables) and some imagery is missing alternative text (1.1.1 Non Text Content).

Non-accessible content - the content is not within the scope of the applicable legislation

PDFs and other documents

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

Many of our older PDFs do not meet accessibility standards. 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.

Some of our PDFs contain complex tables with merged cells. This makes it difficult for people using a screen reader to determine the correct reading order. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (info and relationships).

Where possible we will try to simplify the tables or make sure they are tagged properly for screen readers.

Some of our MS Excel spreadsheets may not be clearly structured with labelled tables, and labelled headings. Column headings may be blank. Workbooks tabs may not have a clear title. This does not meet success criterion 1.3.1 (info and relationships).

Where possible we will try to ensure spreadsheets have an appropriate structure.

Live video

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

Disproportionate burden

The accessibility regulations say that we do not need to make a website accessible if doing so would impose a disproportionate burden on us. We believe that fixing documents, beyond what is set out above, would be a disproportionate burden.

You can read why we consider this to be a disproportionate burden below.

Navigation and accessing information

PDF's and other documents

Where documents are no longer in active use, or no longer being updated, there is a high cost in terms of employee hours to convert. These documents are part of the public record, but no longer represent the current position, and interest is limited.

We always respond to requests for our publications in different formats on a case-by-case basis, so accessible versions are available on demand, with a short lead time. We consider that the costs of converting older documents where there is little evidence of demand would be a poor use of limited employee time and would represent a disproportionate burden on the organisation in terms of cost.

Please contact us to ask for alternative formats.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We regularly review what we are doing in terms of providing better accessibility to our websites. We are working through transferring all PDF documents onto HTML web pages as a priority.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 02 August 2023. It was last reviewed on 01 March 2025.

This website was last tested in August 2023. The test was carried out by Becky Taylor-Rossall using Accessibility Checker.