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Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to www.optical.org

This website is run by the General Optical Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • zoom in up to 200% without the text spilling off the screen
  • 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)

How accessible this website is:

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

  • some PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software, in particular older PDFs
  • live video streams do not have captions
  • Unable to reach the main expanding navigation via keyboard

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:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 7 working days.

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:

The Communications Team
10 Old Bailey
London
EC4M 7NG
email communications@optical.org  or call 02075803898

When contact us please tell us:

In your message, include:

  • the web address (URL) of the content
  • your email address and name
  • the format you need the information provided in

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) (equalityadvisoryservice.com)

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

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

Compliance status

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

Non-accessible content

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

PDFs and other documents

  • Many documents, particularly documents that were published before 2018, are not accessible in a number of ways, including missing text alternatives and missing document and table structure.
  • Some of our documents have diagrams with no text alternative. The information in these diagrams is not available to people using a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). We plan to add text alternatives for all diagrams.
  • Some of our documents have diagrams that do not meet the colour contrast ratio of at least 3:1. These diagrams may be difficult to see, or completely missed, by people with a visual impairment. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.11 (non-text contrast). We plan to fix our diagrams to meet colour contrast requirements.
  • Some of our documents have diagrams that use colour as the only means of conveying information. The information in these diagrams may not be perceived by users with colour vision deficiencies. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.1 (use of colour).
  • Some of our forms do not have page functionality available for using a keyboard. This content cannot be operated through a keyboard or keyboard interface. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1 (keyboard).
  • Some of our documents are published in an unstructured PDF. Headings, list items and paragraphs may not be recognised by a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (info and relationships).
  • Some of our spreadsheets may not be clearly structured with labelled tables, and labelled headings. Column headings may be blank. Workbook tabs may not have a clear title. This does not meet success criterion 1.3.1 (info and relationships).
  • Some of our documents are published using tables to lay out text in columns on the page. This often hides content from the navigation pane or table of contents. This does not meet success criterion 2.4.6 (headings and labels) or success criterion 1.3.1 (info and relationships).

We plan to address the issues highlighted above as part of a wider document review project in 2021/22.

Images

Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

Navigation and accessing information

There’s no way to currently access the main navigation using your keyboard or screen reading software. Our website developers are working on resolving this issue as a priority

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

MyGOC and MyCET are not within the scope of this accessibility statement.

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. For example, we do not plan to fix Bradford College Ophthalmic Dispensing Visit Report - March 2018.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We will be completing a document review during 2021/22 and reviewing every document published on our website and looking to use accessible HTML pages to replace them where possible.

We will also continue to carry out manual and automated tests throughout the year on a wide range of content and interactive forms. We will also be setting clear accessibility standards for third-party suppliers to encourage them the products they provide us up to standard.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 18 January 2021. It was last reviewed on 18 January 2021.

This website was last tested on 18 January 2021. The test was carried out by CTI Digital using Pally Automated Testing tool (https://pa11y.org/)

We decided to test the following pages as they cover all the websites content templates: