Website Accessibility Statement

This accessibility statement applies to the Optalis website. The website provides information about the range of services we provide.

This website is run by Optalis. 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. Or you can view the information below to adjust your device's settings.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • live video streams do not have captions
  • not all images have alt tags

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:

  • Text Relay: 18001 0118 977 8600

If you cannot view the map on our ‘locations’ page, call or email 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 not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: communciations@optalis.org.

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 contact us before your visit to our offices we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Optalis 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 accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations


PDFs and other documents

Many of our PDFs and Office documents published before 23 September 2020 do not meet accessibility standards. For example, they may not be structured so they're accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2. We offer the same information in a web only format, to allow people to access the information they need. 

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

PDFs and other documents

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.

The accessibility regulations also do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents provided by third-parties that we have no control over.

Live video

Live video streams do not have captions. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.4 (captions - live).

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. We use a very limited amount of live video stream. 

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Our accessibility roadmap shows how and when we plan to improve accessibility on this website.

Creating a corresponding HTML page for any PDF we own where it is essential for people to access the information.

We are working through our images to add Alt text to all images we use on our site. Any new images we upload will include alt text.

Any new videos we add to our website will have subtitles formatted.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 26 September 2021. It was last reviewed on 22 December 2023

We routinely carry out manual checks on a proportion of our pages and documents to identify issues.