Accessibility Statement

Accessibility statement for The King’s College London Medical Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership Website.

This statement applies to the King’s College London Medical Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership website at https://kcl-mrcdtp.com/

We want as many people as possible to be able to use the MRC DTP website to find, read and understand the content.

  1. Using The King’s College London Medical Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership Website.

To ensure that all our visitors can use our website, our pages aim to meet Level-AA standard of WCAG accessibility guidelines.

This includes elements such as:

  • Alt text for all images and providing non-visual alternatives where appropriate.
  • The website can be used with a screen reader such as JAWS and VoiceOver..
  • Content is structured, ordered, and labelled appropriately.
  • A range of devices (e.g. mobile phone, tablet, laptop) can be used to access the website.
  • Zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen.
  • Set the font size and preference within your browser (except for section headings).
  • Navigate most of the website using just a keyboard.
  • Skip to main content using keyboard navigation.
  • Navigate most of the website using speech recognition software.

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

  1. Technical information about the accessibility of the MRC DTP website

The MRC DTP is committed to making the https://kcl-mrcdtp.com/ website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. We work to achieve and maintain WCAG 2.1 AA standards, but it is not always possible for all our content to be accessible.

We know some parts of the website aren’t fully accessible, and the complexity and volume of content available presents difficulties in identifying all accessibility issues.

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons. Users may experience issues depending on the course/area they are accessing. For example:

  • You cannot modify the line height or spacing of text.
  • Not all video has captions, text, or audio description (WCAG 2.1 1.2): pre-recorded video and audio published before 23 September 2020 are not within the scope of the accessibility regulations. After 23 September 2020, we are responsible for ensuring that new content we supply meets accessibility requirements.
  • Third party platforms: on occasions we create content which is hosted on third party platforms. This includes content we create on social media and videos hosted on YouTube. We are responsible for ensuring the content we supply meets accessibility requirements; however, we are not responsible for the accessibility of the platform itself.
  • Some images don’t have a text alternative, so the information in them isn’t available to people using a screen reader. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
  1. PDF’s and other documents

Some of our older PDF and Microsoft Word documents do not meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be marked up so that they’re accessible to a screen reader (WCAG 2.1 4.1.2).

Any new PDFs and Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards. The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services (none of the documents published on the website before 23 September 2018 are essential to providing our services).

  1. What to do if you can’t access parts of the MRC DTP website

If you need information on the MRC DTP website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please email mrc-dtp@kcl.ac.uk  We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 7 working days.

  1. Reporting accessibility problems with the MRC DTP website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of the MRC DTP website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please email mrc-dtp@kcl.ac.uk

  1. Escalation procedure

If you need to escalate your issue further, please contact Elena Allen, MRC DTP Manager via email elena.allen@kcl.ac.uk  You can expect an acknowledgement of your issue within 7 working days and a full reply within 14 working days. If your complaint raises complex issues that cannot be answered within 14 working days, we will keep you informed of progress until we can fully respond.

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).

  1. How we tested this website

This website was last tested in October 2022. The test was carried out internally, using a quality assurance tool, followed by a manual check of all issues.

  1. What we are doing to improve accessibility

In addition to our plan to fix known issues, we continue to work on the content and structure of the MRC DTP Website. We are also updating the ways in which we provide training and best practice to those contributing content to our website.

This statement was prepared in March 2023.