Accessibility

This page details the accessibility statements for websites run by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

Section 1 - Professionals, Animal Owners, Find a Vet and Knowledge websites

Section 2 - Concerns Portal website

Section 3 - Recruitment website

Section 1

This accessibility statement applies to the following RCVS websites:

• Professionals
• Animal Owners
• Find a Vet
• RCVS Knowledge

These websites are run by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. We want as many people as possible to be able to use these websites. For example, that means you should be able to:

• zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
• navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
• listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible these websites are

We know some parts of these websites are not fully accessible. For example:

• PDF documents may not be fully accessible to screen reader software
• some videos may not have captions
• some pages may contain minor errors such as incorrect heading hierarchy, empty headings, or broken anchor links
• some content in complex tables may be hard to understand

Technical information about these websites’ accessibility

The RCVS is committed to making its websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

These websites are partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard (WCAG v2.1 AA), 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

• Some embedded videos do not contain descriptive title attributes stating what the video represents in contradiction to WCAG v2.1 AA. We are evaluating a future move to an alternative 3rd party embedding tool. (Criterion 1.2.1 Audio-only and video-only (A))
• Some forms on the site(s) make use of an anti-spam tools called reCAPTCHA that is provided by Google. This results in a form element that does not include a valid label element and as such is non-compliant with WCAG v2.1 AA. We are evaluating a future move to an alternative anti-spam mechanism (Criterion 2.5.3 Label in Name (A))
• Some pages may have a non-logical heading hierarchy that can inhibit the use of screen readers or other similar assistive technologies and that is non-compliant with WCAG v2.1 AA. These are being worked through and should be corrected over time. (Criterion 1.3.1 Info and relationships (A))
• Some pages contain complicated tables that may not be marked up in such a way that it is easy to determine the relationship between headings and values and hence are non-compliant with WCAG v2.1 AA. These are being worked through and should be improved or replaced with alternative representations over time. (Criterion 1.3.1 Info and relationships (A))
• Some pages may contain other minor errors such as empty headings or broken anchor links which are non-compliant with WCAG v2.1 AA. These are being worked through and should be corrected over time. (Criterion 1.3.1 Info and relationships (A) and Criterion 2.4.4 Link purpose (in context) (A))
• Some pages on our Find a Vet site contain Google maps that have insufficient contrast and some elements may be missing an alt attribute which are non-compliant with WCAG v2.1 AA. (Criterion 1.4.11 Non-Text Contrast (AA) and Criterion 1.1.1 Non-text content (A))

Disproportionate burden

• Keyboard navigation of the main "mega-menu" is awkward when using the Firefox browser due to an issue specific to this browser. There is no known work around to this issue that doesn't require the user to change their browser settings. As a result we have not and cannot implement a solution to this problem without redeveloping the menu and presenting it totally differently for all browsers. (Criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard (A))

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

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents relate to essential services we provide to the public. For example, we have PDFs and Word documents with information for users on our concerns service. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

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. For example, we do not plan to fix pass lists for RCVS exams.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish that are essential to providing services to the public will meet accessibility standards.

Videos and audio content

Some of our videos may not have a text description and some audio content may not have a transcript, however this does not relate to any essential services that we provide to the public, and is therefore exempt from the accessibility regulations.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 23 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 23 September 2020.

These websites were last tested in August 2020. The test was carried out in partnership between RCVS and NetXtra Ltd and included tests involving keyboard navigation and screen readers.

As part of the testing process, a set of representative sample pages was identified that contained the most commonly used page templates and components. As improvements were made these pages were re-tested using a mixture of automated and manual procedures to review the impact of the improvements.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on these websites in a different format, for example large print, accessible PDF etc, please email [email protected].

Reporting accessibility problems with these websites

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of these websites. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact us at [email protected].

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).