Disproportionate Burden Assessment
Accessibility roadmap 2025-26
This roadmap outlines our commitment to improving accessibility across our website and digital content. It was published alongside the launch of our new website in [Month, Year].
How we decided our objectives
Accessibility is a priority for us. When designing our new website, we placed accessibility at the heart of our decisions. While most of our website meets accessibility standards, we recognise that some documents do not.
Under the accessibility regulations, we are not required to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 unless they are essential to service delivery. We also have a disproportionate burden assessment for documents published after that date which are not essential to patient care.
We believe that by meeting the objectives in this roadmap, we will continue to improve the accessibility of the information we share.
Our objectives
Our roadmap focuses on building a culture of accessibility across the Trust. We aim to empower staff to create accessible content from the outset.
Ongoing:
We are working hard to develop a culture where creating accessible information is embedded in teams across our trust. To support this we have:
- Developed an accessibility toolbox as guidance for all staff
- Produced guidance on writing clearly, which aims for a reading age of 9-11
- Produced guidance on using images and alt text
- Produced guidance on descriptive links
- Attended training on health literacy and committed to provide further training across the organisation
- Developed online referral forms and moved away from uploading word files
Objectives for 2026:
- Embed the Trust style guide that includes information about creating accessible content across the organisation.
- Roll out accessibility awareness training with key staff who create content. For example, Executive Assistants to produce documents which may be published.
- Monitor and evaluate feedback. Publish progress updates and future plans on our website.
By following this roadmap, we expect the number of non-accessible documents we publish to decrease.
Yearly accessibility audits
Our website will be audited annually to ensure ongoing compliance with accessibility standards. We will address any issues identified and publish updates on our progress.
If you have any feedback, please email communications@cntw.nhs.uk
What we’ve achieved
These actions reflect our ongoing commitment to making information easy to find, easy to understand, and supportive of patient care.
- Rebuilding and relaunching a new website. This included stakeholder engagement to assist us to build a new site that was meaningful and useful to our users. All content has been reviewed with accessibility in mind.
- Undertaken accessibility training
- Changed the format of our patient information leaflets. All 389 patient information leaflets have been changed from pdf to html.
- Ensured that when PDF’s are published, such as our Trust Strategy, an HTML version is also available.
Contact and feedback
If you have any feedback or need this roadmap in an alternative format, please contact:
communications