Website Accessibility Statement for whh.nhs.uk

This accessibility statement applies to the website whh.nhs.uk.

This website is run by Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WHH).

We want as many people as possible to be able to use the website. That means you should be able to: 
•    change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser or device settings 
•    zoom in up to 400 per cent without the text spilling off the screen 
•    navigate most of the website using a keyboard or speech recognition software 
•    listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability and we have provided information on how to make this website easier to use on the Accessibility user settings page.

We aim to make the website text as simple as possible to understand. 

How accessible the 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
  • Some meeting papers and reports cannot be made fully accessible - but we have provided tags and other features to improve accessibility

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact the Trust’s Communications and Engagement Team using the contact details provided on this page and request that your email be forwarded to the Head of Communications and Engagement. 

If you need information on this website in a different format, for example, accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille: 

Email: whh.communications@nhs.net 

Call: 01925 664222 

We will consider your feedback and respond to you within five working days.

If you cannot view the maps for any of the sites listed on the Our locations page, please note that the pages do contain contact and travel details.

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 

Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is committed to making this website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. 

Compliance status

This website has been tested against Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard.

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

The home page is non-compliant with the following standards:

The footer of the home page and all content pages on the site is non-compliant with the following standards:

A fix is in development for all outstanding issues which will be implemented by July 2025.

The page Leaving your feedback contains a link to an external website www.ratemynhs.co.uk that is not accessible and does not meet the following criteria:

There is a plan to move away from using this external web page by December 2025.

Some sections of our meeting agendas, reports and annual reports on the following pages may not be fully accessible. This has been listed in the Disproportionate Burden section on this page.

If you require sections of any of these documents in alternative formats or observe an issue not listed on this page, please get in touch using the contact details provided.

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations 

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.

Maps are exempt from the regulations. Information on addresses for different locations in which we provide services are available in the Our locations section of our website.

Disproportionate burden

We have taken steps to make PDFs on our website as accessible as possible. However, there are instances where some PDFs fall short of the accessibility requirements. This applies to documents where the original source file consists of multiple reports which do not have a consistent approach to tagging headings and other content and include graphs and other visuals which are not possible to explain fully in Alt text fields, for example in the Integrated Performance Report to the Trust Board.

We have assessed that to address the issues would require approximately five weeks of work on the original source files which is beyond the level of resource currently available within the Trust.

We have also considered that the information contained within the files referenced in this assessment are not required to access any of the NHS health services we provide and therefore would not present any barrier to accessing services for patients or carers.

We have also considered how the allocation of resource to fixing any remaining accessibility issues in PDF documents would impact on our ability to communicate information that supports patients in accessing health services.

Guidance has been developed to ensure future reports published on the website will be structured and formatted to meet accessibility requirements, where possible.

What we're doing to improve accessibility

We will carry out an accessibility audit of our website as part the website housekeeping. Next audit due 1 April  2026.

We will conduct monthly testing of the website using automated accessibility tools.

We have provided target dates for fixing outstanding issues of non-compliance with accessibility standards. 

Preparation of this accessibility statement 

This statement was prepared on 17 September 2024 and last reviewed on 18 April 2025.

This website was last tested on 17 September 2024 against the WCAG [2.2] AA standard and re-tested on 10 April 2025. The manual test was conducted on the Trust's behalf by Informatics Merseyside.

Automated testing using the Silktide tool was completed by the Trust's Communications and Engagement Team in April 2025.

Last updated: Tuesday 22 April 2025