Accessibility Statement

Contents

This accessibility statement applies to the NIHR Local website local.nihr.ac.uk.

This website is run by the NIHR. 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 400% with text staying visible on the screen, and most images scaling without resolution loss
• navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
• read most of the website using a screen reader, including the latest versions of JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver
• read most of the website on devices without a screen, like a braille computer
• use the website, though not the search, even if Javascript is switched off.

We've made the website text as simple as possible to understand, using plain English wherever possible.

Some of our content is technical, and contains scientific terms and language. In some instances we have not been able to simplify the wording without changing the meaning of the text.

If you have a problem accessing any documents then AbilityNet has advice to help you make your device easier to use.

How accessible this website is

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

• Some content is embedded in our website, such as videos, and you cannot easily scale these on screen (but you can open a full screen version)
• Some content embedded in our HTML documents is not fully accessible. 
• The breadcrumb trail for pages is not currently optimised for screen readers.

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

• Email crncc.comms@nihr.ac.uk

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

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of the website.

If you find any problems which aren't listed on this page, or think that we're not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, then please email crncc.comms@nihr.ac.uk with the details to let us know and help us improve.

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).

The NIHR 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.

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

Some links on the site are not currently formatted in a compliant manner and we aim to fix these as quickly as possible. This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) and WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum).

We are working to address instances where the colour contrast of links is incorrect, or links are incorrectly formatted. We aim to complete this by July 2021

We scan the site periodically for broken links, and look to fix them as soon as they are identified.

Some buttons on the site are worded or formatted in an ambiguous way. This does not comply with WCAG success criterion 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose. We are working to address this across the site by July 2021.

We are aware of some issues with headings across the site which do not comply with WCAG 2.4.6 Headings and Labels. In some cases, headings are incorrectly coded, and we are running some development work to address this by July 2021.

There are some issues with heading structure on certain documents and pages, and empty headings. We are working to address these instances by June 2021.

The breadcrumb is currently an unordered list without child items which is problematic for screen readers. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships). An update to the CMS is due which will allow this issue to be resolved by April 2021.

For keyboard users, the focus highlight is unclear, which does not comply with WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible.

We are working to address this by July 2021.

We strive to make all of our content accessible. We are aware of the following issues with images and video on our site:

• Video content uses automated closed captioning and transcripting, and this is often inaccurate. We review these captions and ensure their accuracy manually.
• There are some images with missing alt text, particularly the images of logos from our partners across the site. This does not comply with WCAG success criterion 1.4.5 images of text. We aim to make these accessible by July 2021.
• Some of our videos are missing audio descriptions, which does not conform with WCAG success criterion 1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded).  We are working to address this by August 2021.

The vast majority of our website works correctly on any web technology.

For security reasons, we only support TLS 1.2 and higher security protocols, and this means that some older browsers will not show the site.

Internet Explorer is no longer supported by Microsoft, and while the site may work in more recent versions of IE, we do not recommend its use. 

You may experience unexpected behaviour in other browsers, although we use fully validated code which should work on any other browser.

In October 2020, the NIHR engaged the Shaw Trust on for the website www.nihr.ac.uk (which this NIHR Local site is based on) to assess the website for accessibility. They undertook testing of the mobile and desktop version of our sites. On Desktop they used automated testing, a technical manual review, and user testing by seven in-house assessors with a range of disabilities, some using assistive technologies.

The report found non-compliance with WCAG legislation in the below areas which also apply to this site:

We aim to resolve these issues by August 2021

This statement was prepared in January 2020. It was last reviewed in February 2021.