Accessibility

Our aim has been to design a simply and clearly laid out site which is easy to use for all our user groups. This is balanced against our desire to provide cutting edge solutions on the web to those who want them. Our plan for this is an evolutionary one involving working with various users groups to address this issue in a continuous way. Only with your help and feedback can we achieve this goal.
Some applications in this website will use non-accessibility friendly technologies such as JavaScript, Cookies or non optimised layouts. Where possible alternatives have been provided and this is an area we are working hard to address over the coming development period. If you are having problems using or finding your way around the site, the following areas may help.

How to use the site
Printing
Downloading
Changing font sizes and colours

How to use the site

Navigation: The navigation bar on the left contains the main site links. There are also useful options at the top and bottom navigation bar contained on each page.

Accesskeys: Key areas or services provided by the site are available via the use of AccessKeys. These are available by pressing the 'Alt' key and the corresponding number for the link you want, followed by the return key. The links available are as follows:

Alt + 1: Homepage
Alt + 2: Making choices
Alt + 3: Search types
Alt + 4: For Advisors
Alt + 5: For Providers
Alt + 6: Help
Alt + 7: Housing Options (sheltered housing, retirement housing search)
Alt + 8: Care Options (care home search)
Alt + 9: Site map

Scrolling content: Depending on your machine and setting some pages will contain scrolling content. This unfortunately poses problems for some users. The arrow keys on your keyboard as well as the 'up' and 'down' arrow keys should help with scrolling. On these pages you should also find links taking you back to the top of the page Back to top

Printing

At the present moment printing is only optimised for modern browsers. Users with compatible browsers will find pages are automatically formatted using the browsers in built print function (use print preview on this page to see what we mean). Users with older browsers should still be able to print pages and should contact the web team if they encounter any problems.

Downloading content

Many different types of content will be made available through this website. This section will provide any information required for com[patibility with these downloads.
PDF documents.To view these you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. To download this for free from the Adobe website click the button below:

Font sizes and colours

Controlling text and colours in your web browser

If you use the Internet Explorer or Netscape browsers to view the Internet, the following guidelines will enable you to enlarge the size of the text and control the colours on your screen. However, if you require even larger text, or use a text-only browser, please refer to the RNIB website: www.rnib.org.uk , which contains useful information on how to access the web using different technologies.

Instructions for users of Microsoft Internet Explorer:

For PC

Open your Internet Explorer Web Browser
Select 'View' from the menu at the top of your window.
From the options which appear, select 'Text size'
Select your desired text size

For Apple Mac

Open your Internet Explorer Web Browser
Select the 'edit' menu at the top of your window
From the options menu which appears, select 'preference'
Click on 'web content'
Deselect the button marked 'show style sheets'
Return to the list of preferences
Click on 'web browser'
Select 'language/fonts'
Select the font size you require

Instructions for users of Netscape Navigator prior to version 6

To change the text size:

Select 'Edit' from the menu at the top of the window and choose 'Preferences'
Open the Appearance group and click the 'Fonts' category
Next to 'For the encoding' should read Western to tell the computer which types of letters and symbols to use. From 'Size' select 18
Next to the Variable Width Font field is a drop down box: select 'Arial'.
The Fixed Width Font box should already read 'Courier New'. From 'Size' select 18
To override the fonts used by the designer of the web page, select 'Use my default fonts overriding document specified fonts'
Click 'OK'

To change the page colors:

Select 'Edit' from the menu at the top of the window and choose 'Preferences'
Open the Appearance group and click the 'Colors' category
Select a color button to change colors of text, background, unvisited links, or visited links
To override the colours used on the web page, select the 'Use my colours, overriding document' option.
Click 'OK'

Instructions for users of Netscape Navigator version 6 and up

To change the text size:

Select 'Edit' from the menu at the top of the window and choose 'Preferences'
Open the Appearance group and click the Fonts category
Next to 'Fonts for:' should read Western to tell the computer which types of letters and symbols to use.
Next to the 'Proportional' field is a drop down box: select 'Sans-serif'. For the size select 18.
Next to the 'Monospace' field, the box should already read 'Courier New'. From 'Size' select 18.
In the 'Minimum font size' box select size 18.
Deselect the 'Allow documents to use other fonts' checkbox so no tick shows by clicking on it.
Click 'OK'

To change the page colors:

Select 'Edit' from the menu at the top of the window and choose 'Preferences'
Open the Appearance group and click the 'Colors' category
Select a color button to change colors of text, background, unvisited links, or visited links
To override the colours used on the web page, select the 'Use my chosen colors, ignoring the colors and background image chosen' option.
Click 'OK'