Supporting the National Care Service to build accessible, inclusive ways of working
As the Scottish Government develops the new National Care Service (NCS), the Office of the Chief Designer wanted to strengthen how accessibility was understood and applied across their teams. They asked us to review their processes, tools and approaches, and to provide practical training that would help staff design and deliver services that work for everyone, including people with a wide range of accessibility needs.
We began by reviewing the Scottish Government’s existing documents and ways of working to understand how accessibility was included in research and engagement. This helped us identify several areas for deeper exploration.
We then carried out a programme of user research with staff across the organisation. Through interviews and conversations with senior stakeholders, we gathered honest insight into:
- how confident people felt engaging with participants with accessibility needs
- how accessibility was understood across teams
- the gaps between policy, training and day-to-day practice
These findings shaped a set of interactive workshops. Using Miro and highlighting its own accessibility limitations, we explored current challenges, anxieties, tools and processes, and created a shared journey of what accessible co-design should look like.
Using everything we learned, we developed an accessibility training curriculum tailored to NCS workflows. The programme covered:
- designing accessible digital products and services
- involving people with accessibility needs in co-design
- accessible publishing, formats and legal obligations
- best practice for events, helplines, translation and video/audio provision
- running inclusive usability testing with people using assistive technologies
Training was delivered in small groups, online or in person, and combined standards-based learning with hands-on activities. We also ran a “train-the-trainer” session so NCS staff could confidently share their new knowledge with colleagues.
All learning materials were delivered in accessible formats through Moodle, packaged as SCORM modules for reuse in their internal learning systems.
We delivered a clear, accessible strategy document outlining best practice for accessible content, publishing and inclusive research. We demonstrated why separating content structure from design is essential, and showed how teams can quickly check accessibility in their everyday work.
We also provided guidelines to support users of a wide range of assistive technologies, as well as guidance for working with people whose first language is not English.
Together, the research, training and best practice documents gave the NCS team the confidence to make informed decisions and a clear understanding of what needs to change within their existing governance to meaningfully involve disabled people in the design of future services.
