Accessibility

We have a variety of accessible services within our Trust and are dedicated to developing and improving our facilities so that we are accessible to everyone in the community.

Communication Support for Patients with a Disability

The Accessible Information Standard says that all providers of adult social care and health services must provide additional communication support for patients with disabilities, their parents and/or carers.

We need you to tell us if you need additional communication support relating to a disability. This will allow us to highlight your additional needs on your patient record and enable us to provide you with the support you need, when using one or more of our services.

Please complete our Communication Webform here.

Additional Information

• Patients with Mobility Needs

  Wheelchair Access
  All hospital and out-patient clinic reception entrances are suitable for wheelchairs. There are disabled toilets in key locations around the hospital and out-patient clinics.

  Motorised Scooters
  Motorised scooters are allowed within the hospital / out-patient clinics.

  Disabled Parking
  Disabled parking is available on all hospital sites.

  Mobility Aids
  Mobility aids are available within the hospital. This includes bariatric beds, wheelchairs, manual hoists, hoist slings, tri wheel walkers, walking sticks, walking frames, crutches and commodes which are all available on request. There is no charge for mobility aids.

  Cancelling or Re-scheduling Hospital Appointments on-line
  Patients are able to cancel or reschedule their appointments via the Trust’s Website. This new facility enables patients to notify the Trust if they are unable to attend an appointment for any reason via on-line.

  Improving Access – Online Appointments Booking Service
  We understand that some of our patients may have difficulty in contacting us by telephone to arrange an appointment. If you are hearing impaired, speech impaired or unable to use a telephone, you can now arrange your appointment on-line via the link below:

  Change or Cancel Your Appointment on-line

• Patients with Visual Impairments

  Registered Guide Dogs
  Guide dogs may accompany you during your visit, but please give the hospital staff as much notice as possible so they can accommodate this. Guide dogs are not able to access all areas of our hospitals. Please talk to our staff beforehand to check.

  Staff are usually asked to accommodate a side room or visiting area for patients that require a guide dog or people visiting with a guide dog.

  Patient Information Leaflets / Correspondence in Alternative Formats
  Alternative formats are available on request. If you wish to request an audio leaflet, braille, hi contrast (black text against yellow background), or require the leaflet in a different language then please contact the department/ward you are attending.

   Tell us about your needs/special requirements

  Please telephone the number on your appointment letter / notify our hospital staff if you have any special needs or mobility problems. We may need to make special arrangements to ensure your visit is as straightforward as possible.

  • Are you disabled / have mobility problems?
  • Are you hearing / visually impaired?
  • Use special equipment?
  • Need written information in large print or audio?

  The more you can tell us about your individual needs the more we can put in place to ensure those needs are met.

• Patients with Hearing impairments

  British Sign Language Interpreters
  The Trust provides Sign Language Interpreters and Lip Readers for the hearing impaired.

  Appointment Reminder Text Messaging Service
  A Text Messaging Service was implemented to remind patients about their forthcoming appointments and subsequently reduce the number of appointments not attended.

  Cancelling or Re-scheduling Hospital Appointments on-line
  Patients are able to cancel or reschedule their appointments via the Trust’s Website. This new facility enables patients to notify the Trust if they are unable to attend an appointment for any reason via on-line.

  Improving Access – Online Appointments Booking Service
  We understand that some of our patients may have difficulty in contacting us by telephone to arrange an appointment. If you are hearing impaired, speech impaired or unable to use a telephone, you can now arrange your appointment on-line via the link below:

  Change or Cancel Your Appointment on-line

• Cookies

  Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They’re used on this website to:

  • help it work
  • give us information about how people are using it
  • help us make improvements

  You can delete and block all cookies from this site, but some parts of the site may not work very well. You can read more about cookies and how to control them here.

  This is a list of all the cookies we use.

  Title of Cookie
  Google Analytics

  Cookie Name
  _utma
  _utmb
  _utmc
  _utmz

  Purpose of cookie
  These cookies collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to write reports and to help us improve the website.

  The cookies collect information like:
  •    the number of visitors to the site
  •    where our visitors have come from the pages they visited

  More Information
  Google’s privacy information
  How to opt-out of Google Analytics

  

  Title of Cookie
  Google Translate

  Cookie Name
  googtrans

  Purpose of cookie
  This cookie keeps track of which language has been selected from the Google Translate tool.

  

  Title of Cookie
  Colour contrast

  Cookie Name
  contrast-mode

  Purpose of cookie
  This cookie keeps track of which colour contrast mode has been selected from the Accessibility Tools.

  

  Title of Cookie
  Accessibility bar

  Cookie Name
  accessibility-controls

  Purpose of cookie
  This cookie keeps track of whether the accessibility bar is opened or closed.

  

  Title of Cookie
  Text size

  Cookie Name
  saveFontSize

  Purpose of cookie
  This cookie keep track of the text size that has been set from the Accessibility Tools.

   

• Website Accessibility - Browser Settings

  Text Size
  Some visitors may find it necessary to increase or decrease the size of the text on our site. This can be achieved by holding down the 'Ctrl' key (for Windows), or 'Cmd' key (for Apple Mac), then pressing + or - to alter the text size up or down respectively. If you have an older browser, you can use the 'View' menu and highlight the 'Text Size' option. You can also click the 'Accessibility' tab at the top of each page to access the clickable options.

  Colour
  Some visitors may find it necessary to change the website display colour / have a greater colour contrast. This can be achieved by using the 'Accessibility' tab at the top of each page.
  
  New Trust Website Accessibility
  We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible. We are currently working on improving accessibility options:

  • Change colours / contrast levels and fonts
  • On screen magnifier – zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • Listen to most of the website using a screen reader (text to speech) – JAWS, NVDA, Voice Over)
  • Navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • Navigate most of the website using speech recognition software