This website is run by The Royal Veterinary College. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

• change colours, contrast levels and fonts
• 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 the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

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

How accessible is this website?

We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible:

• you can’t modify the line height or spacing of text
• most older PDF documents aren’t fully accessible to screen reader software
• live graduation video streams (hosted on Facebook) don’t have captions
• some of our online forms may be difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
• you can’t skip to the main content when using a screen reader
• there’s a limit to how far you can magnify the map on our ‘find us’ pages as defined by Google

What to do if you can’t access parts of the website

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

• email webmaster@rvc.ac.uk
• call +44 (0)1707 669641

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 24 hours (Monday to Friday)

If you can’t view the map on our ‘find us’ pages, call or email us https://www.rvc.ac.uk/contact-us for directions.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: webmaster@rvc.ac.uk.

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).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We provide a text relay service for people who are D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.
If you have any other specific requirements which you would like us to be aware of before you visit us you can find out how to contact us at https://www.rvc.ac.uk/study/support-for-students/getting-support/disabilities-dyslexia-and-long-term-health-differences

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

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

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

• HTML5WCAG 2.0 A 4.1.1Section 508 (2017) - some elements have duplicate IDs
  Action: By December 2022 all values of type ID are unique in the web page and duplicates are removed
• HTML5WCAG 2.0 A 4.1.1Section 508 (2017) - some heading tags appear as the descendants of the address and footer elements
  Action: By December 2022 correct the code in the header and footer by ensuring they are not descendants of the address/footer elements are simplified as follows:
• WCAG 2.0 AA 2.4.6Section 508 (2017) – Some form field labels are not unique on a page, or enclosed in a fieldset with a legend that makes the label unique
  Action: By December 2022 all forms on the website will have unique field names
• We also know that some images on our website are missing Alt text and are systematically working through these. Currently the RVC Equine section is fully up to date.
  Action: All of these will be fixed (and new images going forward) by December 2022

Disproportionate burden

Navigation and accessing information

• There’s no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option). This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.1 (bypass blocks).
• It’s not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.4 (orientation).
• It’s not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4 (resize text).

Interactive tools and transactions

Some of our forms are built and hosted through third party software and embedded into the website as iframes. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (information and relationships).

We’ve assessed the cost of either developing our website to host these forms and then pass the data into our CRM system (rather than directly through iframes). We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when the CRM supplier contract is up for renewal, likely to be in May 2020.

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).

Some of our PDFs are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services.

By September 2023, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

The accessibility regulations don’t 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 don’t plan to fix https://www.rvc.ac.uk/Media/Default/BVD/documents/VetResBoothetal2013.pdf

Any new PDFs we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

Live video streams pre-2019 and hosted on Facebook don’t have captions. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.4 (captions - live).

We don’t plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. All live video streams from 2019 onwards are hosted on YouTube using the built in captioning capability.

How we tested this website

This website was last tested on 3rd September 2019 and all 82 pages of RVC Equine were tested on 11th October 2022. These tests were carried out internally by our web team using a variety of online tools (i.e. https://www.powermapper.com and https://wave.webaim.org).

The approach we used when deciding on a sample of pages to test was:

• Those at the top level of the site (i.e. everything linked from the main navigation)
• The most visited (i.e. where different from above those which have had the most unique visitors in the last year)
• Additional examples of all design layouts (i.e. the pages which don’t fit into either of the above categories but show examples of the additional page layouts available)

We tested our main website platform, available at www.rvc.ac.uk

Contacting us and what happens next

Please contact us at webmaster@rvc.ac.uk if you have any problems; be as specific and detailed as you can. Please also tell us what you like and find useful.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has useful tips on contacting organisations about inaccessible websites.

When you contact us there is a process in place that will acknowledge your contact, tell you who is dealing with it and give you a timescale by which you can expect a reply.

Last update

This statement was prepared on 4th September 2019. It was last updated on 11th October 2022.