Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to the public website for County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust (www.cddft.nhs.uk).

This website is run by County Durham and Darlington 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

We've also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

How accessible is this website:

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
• 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:

• cdda-tr.GeneralEnquiries@nhs.net
• call 01325 74 2579

We'll consider your request and get back to you in 3 days.

If you cannot view the map on our 'contact us' page, call or email us or find google maps on our hospital pages for directions: /our-hospitals.aspx

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are undertaking further work to improve the accessibility of our website and will continue work on this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we're not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: CDDFT Communications Team: cdda-tr.communications@nhs.net

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).

Visiting us in person

If you contact us before your visit we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

Find out how to contact us: /about-the-trust/contact-us.aspx

Technical information about this website's accessibility

County Durham and Darlington 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 listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Navigation and accessing information

• contrast: we are improving the colour contrast to make it easier for someone with sight loss to see the content properly.

Interactive tools and transactions

Some of our interactive forms are difficult to navigate using a keyboard. 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 2022.

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

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. By September 2021, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

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.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

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

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 26 May 2021. It was last reviewed in November 2020.

This website was last tested in November 2020. The test was carried out by Government Digital Service.

You can read the full accessibility test report: CLICK HERE