Accessibility statement for the Serious Hazards of Transfusion website
Serious Hazards of Transfusion is the UK’s independent professionally led haemovigilance scheme. SHOT is funded by the four UK Blood Services and hosted by NHS Blood and Transplant. We are committed to making our website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (websites and mobile applications) (No 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
This accessibility statement applies to www.shotuk.org. This website is run by MIXD. 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 using browser or device settings
- zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
- navigate most of the website using a keyboard or speech recognition software
- listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver
We have tried to make the text on this website as simple as possible to understand. Ability Net has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
Compliance status
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed in the non-accessible content section of this page.
How accessible is this website
We want as many people as possible to be able to use our website.
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
- Some pages and attachments may use complex language
- Most older documents, especially PDFs, are not fully accessible
- Live video streams do not have captions, however, where we have video hosted on YouTube, the platform provides automatically generated captions. Older videos hosted on other platforms may not have captions.
We have conducted an audit and are reviewing all resources on our website to determine which parts are not yet fully accessible. We have identified the need for several improvements which are listed in the non-accessible content section of this page.
Feedback and contact information
If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please contact us:
- Email [email protected]
- call 01614234208
- by letter addressed to the SHOT Office, Manchester Blood Centre, Plymouth Grove, Manchester M13 9LL
In your message, please include:
- the web address (URL) of the content
- your name and email address
- the format that you need (for example: audio CD, braille, BSL or large print, accessible PDF)
We are committed to respond promptly and will make every effort to provide an accessible version as quickly as possible.
Report accessibility problems with this website
If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or you think that we are not meeting the accessibility requirements, please contact us using the details provided above and let us know, so that we can put it right.
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, you can contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
Non-accessible content
The content that is not accessible is outlined in this section with details of how it fails the success criteria.
- Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
We have historically published annual reports and documents as PDFs and/or Word documents between 2018 and 2024 that are not necessarily accessible. Our goal is to ensure all active and relevant documents on our website meet the standards outlined in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA.
We are committed to reviewing documents and other educational resources regularly by prioritising those that are more than 3 years old to ensure they meet current accessibility standards. We will endeavour to have most resources that are within the scope of the accessibility guidelines updated in the next 5 years. In the interim, if users need an accessible version for any document/resource, we encourage contacting us using the details provided above.
For the Annual SHOT Report released in July every year, we are planning to work with relevant stakeholders, support a design review and an options appraisal for an updated report design to enable a move to a HTML format in 3 years’ time. This is only applicable to future Annual SHOT Reports. We are not planning to reproduce all the older Annual SHOT Reports in HTML format, but we encourage users who need an accessible version to contact us with details of the sections needed and we will endeavour to provide that.
- Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
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.
Some videos have audio description issues, these are exempt as they were published before 23 September 2020.
- PDFs and other documents
The accessibility regulations do not apply to 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 the Annual SHOT reports published before this date. If users need an accessible version for any of the past Annual SHOT Reports, we encourage contacting us using the details provided above.
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
- Live video
We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations, however recorded webinars that are hosted on YouTube should have a CC option for captioned video.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
At SHOT, we are committed to making all content on our website, including downloadable documents, accessible to all users. We understand that some of our existing resources may not fully meet the accessibility standards and we are actively working to address this.
Here are the steps we are taking:
- Reviewing existing resources: We are conducting an ongoing review of all PDFs, Word documents and other file types to identify and prioritise accessibility improvements
- Creating accessible formats: When uploading new documents, we ensure they are created in compliance with accessibility guidelines, such as providing proper heading structures, alternative text for images and clear layouts
- Converting legacy documents: Older documents and resources are being updated or replaced with accessible versions as part of our accessibility improvement plan over the next 5 years if covered under the accessibility guidelines
- Training staff: All our SHOT team members are being trained on accessibility best practices to ensure that all future documents meet accessibility standards. Staff are becoming familiar with producing accessible documents and other outputs, including the website, reports, and other publications.
- Providing alternate formats: If a document/resource is not accessible, we encourage users to contact us for an alternative format
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 14 January 2025 and will be reviewed annually.
This website was last tested by MIXD on 06 November 2023 against the WCAG 2.2 guidelines, to level AA.
Conformance evaluation of web accessibility included a combination of semi-automated evaluation tools and manual evaluation by an experienced reviewer. As the website is composed of many pages, the testing was carried out using a representative page sample approach. All the key pages and the main page types were evaluated as part of this review.
You can read the full accessibility test report here.
As part of our ongoing website management, we carry out regular assessments and checks of documents and pages that are uploaded. An accessibility audit of the SHOT website is planned once every 2 years.