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Accessibility Statement
This accessibility statement applies to the NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) website for England (www.sbs.nhs.uk).
We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website.
This means you should be able to:
- change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser, device, or UserWay settings
- navigate most of the website using just a keyboard or speech recognition software
- listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
Accessibility on NHS SBS
NHS SBS strives to ensure that its services are accessible to people with disabilities. NHS SBS has invested a significant amount of resources to help ensure that its website is made easier to use and more accessible for people with disabilities, with the strong belief that every person has the right to live with dignity, equality, comfort and independence.
UserWay Accessibility Widget
NHS SBS makes available the UserWay Website Accessibility Widget that is powered by a dedicated accessibility server. The software allows NHS SBS to improve its compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.2).
The UserWay Accessibility Widget offers a broad selection of functions that visitors can use to meet their individual accessibility needs. UserWay provides the following accessibility functionality:
- increase Text Size
- change text spacing
- change text line height
- pause animations
- change colour contrast and saturation
- tooltips
- convert to accessible fonts
- highlight links
- increase cursor size
- introduce accessibility profiles for motor impaired, blind, colour blind, dyslexia, low vision, cognitive & learning, seizure & epileptic and ADHD.
Enabling the Accessibility Menu
The NHS SBS accessibility menu can be enabled either by hitting the tab key when the page first loads or by clicking the accessibility menu icon that appears on the corner of the page. After triggering the accessibility menu, please wait a moment for the accessibility menu to load in its entirety.
Compliance Status
In an ongoing effort to continually improve and remediate accessibility issues, we also regularly scan www.sbs.nhs.uk with UserWay’s Accessibility Scanner to identify and fix every possible accessibility barrier on our site.
Despite our efforts to make all pages and content on www.sbs.nhs.uk fully accessible, some content may not have yet been fully adapted to the strictest accessibility standards.
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content that is not accessible is listed below together with an explanation.
- Forms
- help and error information may not announced automatically to screen readers.
- some messages are not automatically announced to users of assistive technology.
- the keyboard focus may not visible on the dropdown menu’s within forms.
- Navigation and links
- the dropdown menus from along the navigational menu cannot be accessed using the keyboard.
- at 200% zoom and more, the keyboard cannot be used to expand the accordion menus within the hamburger menu.
- when hovering over the navigation bar dropdown menus, there is no mechanism to dismiss the additional content triggered without moving pointer hover or keyboard focus.
- some slider radio buttons may not be accessed using the keyboard
- some links and images that are not self-explanatory to screen reader users
- links to websites or software that we do not own or manage and so cannot guarantee their accessibility
- Images with text overlay
- elements of text with background images may not have sufficient colour contrast.
- Maps
- map frames may not contain an accessible title name.
- PDFs
- older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- images do not always have text alternatives, which means some content is not available when using text-to-speech software
- Content visibility
- low contrast focus indication style on: banner text, links, buttons, form fields, and search components
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
- PDFs and other documents
Some of our older PDFs do not meet accessibility standards. 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.
We have begun the process of updating PDFs to meet the common accessibility standards, such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and PDF/UA (Universal Access, or ISO 14289).
We’re possible we are removing PDF’s with more accessible content alternatives, including the creation of structured web pages in HTML.
We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when the supplier contract is up for renewal, likely to be in 2026.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
At NHS SBS, creating an accessible service is a team effort. We want our teams to make accessible services by:
- considering accessibility at the start of their project, and throughout
- introduced a cross-functional accessibility working group to make sure that accessibility remains at the core of everything we do.
- making accessibility the whole team’s responsibility
- researching with disabled users
- using a library of accessible components and patterns
We are making sure that accessibility issues highlighted in this statement are being prioritised and fixed. Measures include:
- moving away from new content being produced in PDF
- plans to remove, update or replace older PDFs with more accessible content
- ongoing improvements to our website design with a focus on accessibility
- working with third party suppliers to improve the accessibility of our website
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, please give feedback about the NHS SBS website. This helps 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).
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
NHS SBS is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Preparation of this Accessibility Statement
This website was last tested on 5th December 2024 against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.
We use a mixture of simple manual checks and automated tests to find only the most common barriers to users with accessibility needs. The most viewed pages were tested using automated testing tools by our website team. A further audit of the website was carried out to the WCAG 2.2 AA standard. The automated tests were completed using the latest version of Axe.
This statement was updated on the 22nd of January 2025.
Next review due: 22nd January 2027
Feedback and Contact Information
If you have an accessibility query you can give feedback about the NHS SBS website, including:
- if you have any problems accessing information or using this website
- if you have any positive feedback about this website’s accessibility
We aim to respond in 5 working days.
Alternative formats
We’ve designed our content to be as accessible as possible.
If you need information on this website in a different format, please give feedback about the NHS SBS website.
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 10 working days.
Give Feedback
If you wish to report an accessibility issue, have any questions or need assistance, please contact NHS SBS Customer Support using the form below.
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