Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies the Muckamore Abbey Hospital Inquiry website.

This website is run by the Muckamore Abbey Hospital Inquiry. It is designed to be used by as many people as possible. The text should be clear and simple to understand. You should be able to:

  • Zoom in up to 300% without problems
  • Navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • Navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • Use most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver).

Parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

  • Some document elements have poor colour contrast
  • Some heading elements within documents are not properly indicated
  • Some video content does not have a text alternative, or clear annotations.
  • Some documents which are in PDF and MS Office formats are not fully accessible.

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

E-mail: Info@mahinquiry.org,uk

Telephone Number: 028 9051 5462

We’ll consider your request and get back to you as soon as we can.

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, please contact us with the details provided previously.

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 Equalities Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The Muckamore Abbey Hospital Inquiry 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-accessible content

The content that is not accessible is outlined below with details of:

  • The accessibility problem(s)
  • Where it fails the success criteria, and
  • When we plan to fix it

Videos

Some videos are absent of video captioning, which would be useful in providing context to the shots used. This fails under WCAG 2.1 Checkpoint 1.2.3 Audio Description or Media Alternative (Pre-recorded), Checkpooint 1.2.5 Audio Description (Pre-recorded). We planned to repair these pages within the next 12 months, by October 2023, but have since filed this under disproportionate burden after further research.

Documents

Some documents aren’t tagged to specify the correct reading order and may require a tag tree that reflects the information and assists with determining the reading order. This fails under WCAG 2.1 Checkpoint 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence. We repaired these fails in March 2023.

Some documents are missing bookmarks that parallel the document structure. This fails under WCAG 2.1 Checkpoint 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks. We repaired these fails in March 2023.

Navigation

There are multiple examples of lists not being marked up which may present navigation issues for users with assistive technologies.  There are also instances that no tagging in the document is present, therefore there is no heading structure. Both fail under WCAG 2.1 Checkpoint 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. We repaired these fails in March 2023.

Colour Scheme and Contrast – The contrast of different headings does not meet the required ratio. This fails under WCAG 2.1 Checkpoint 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast. We planned to repair these pages within the next 12 months, by October 2023, but have since filed this under disproportionate burden after further research.

Disproportionate burden

Some videos are absent of video captioning, which would be useful in providing context to the shots used. This fails under WCAG 2.1 Checkpoint 1.2.3 Audio Description or Media Alternative (Pre-recorded), Checkpoint 1.2.5 Audio Description (Pre-recorded). This refers to one video that was referenced by Senior Council at a hearing on 07/06/2022. We have determined that we cannot make fundamental changes to the video at this time, under the basis that it needs to remain unchanged, for Inquiry transparency purposes.

Colour Scheme and Contrast – The contrast of different headings does not meet the required ratio. This fails under WCAG 2.1 Checkpoint 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast. This refers to three documents, which use the colours of the Inquiry logo. For Inquiry continuity purposes, we have determined that we cannot make fundamental changes to these documents at this time. Furthermore, the documents were generated by an external company and changes to the documents can only be made by this firm. This would prove a significant financial cost.

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

Not applicable.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We plan to identify and fix issues according to the timescales shown for each area above.

This statement was prepared on 24th October 2022. It was last updated on 12th March 2023.