Disproportionate burden statement
Updated 27 September 2024
This website is run by South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SCAS). We are committed to making our website as accessible as possible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
However, we acknowledge that this site is currently not fully compliant. We want our site to be as accessible as possible for as many people as possible. We are working on improvements to meet the website accessibility WCAG 2.2 standard.
Information on current accessibility issues, our approach to testing the site, and actions we are taking to improve accessibility are explained in our accessibility statement.
Disproportionate burden issues
Non-accessible PDFs
We have systems in place and have trained staff to ensure that as many of the PDFs on the site are accessible. However, our bi-monthly public Board papers are currently not possible to make fully accessible.
As an NHS Trust we are required to hold Board meetings in public and to publish the papers. The primary aim of the papers is to allow the Board to carry out its responsibilities and gain assurance that the Trust is being effectively managed. The papers are working documents for the Board and the full set is collated from information drafted by multiple teams using multiple different systems. A number of the regular papers are produced by automatic exports of content from Business Intelligence systems. This generates graphs and tables that do not meet accessiblity standards, but are essential for the needs of the Board.
It would not be practical or affordable to make the Board papers PDF fully accessible. A full set of papers regularly exceeds 300 pages. It would cost over £5,000 to make a set of papers fully accessible – an annual cost in excess of £30,000. The average viewing rates for our Board papers are around seven views per report. We therefore consider it to be a disproportionate burden to action.
If members of the public require information from the Board Papers in alternative formats they can contact company.secretary@scas.nhs.uk with a request for specific elements from a set of papers and we will discuss the best way to make the information available given individual accessibility needs.
Full compliance with accessible code
This website is built using Divi within WordPress, plus several other third-party plug-ins. Divi is making changes to improve accessibility, but it is a US based company and its software is not fully compliant with the standards we are now expected to meet as a UK public sector organisation.
For the site to be fully compliant we would need to rebuild it on a new backend system. The cost of this is estimated at circa £40,000 and is not something the Trust currently has the resources for. In the current financial year (2024/25) the Trust faces significant financial challenges and our resources need to be prioritised on delivering frontline patient services.
We are reviewing the potential to develop a business case for a site rebuild as part of budget planning for 2025/26. This would have to be considered against other priority calls on the Trust’s finite budget.
Until a new site is possible, we will continue to run annual accessibility testing to identify issues and try to resolve them within the areas of coding, site structure, and content that we can change. Compliance issues we are aware of and actions being taken to improve accessibility will be updated in our accessibility statement.
If members of the public identify accessibility issues with the website they can contact patientexperience@scas.nhs.uk and we will investigate whether improvements can be made within the current systems.