Accessibility and the Equality Act for Private Clinic Websites

The duty in plain terms

The Equality Act 2010 protects disabled people from discrimination when they use services, including private healthcare. One of its main tools is the duty to make reasonable adjustments. RNIB's guidance for organisations summarises it: under the Act, you have a duty to make reasonable adjustments, and the duty is anticipatory, which means you cannot wait until a disabled person wants to use your services^[1].

A clinic website is part of how many clinics provide their service. If patients use it to find information, check fees or request appointments, it is reasonable to expect it to work for people with disabilities. This guide is not legal advice; it explains why accessibility is a practical priority and what to focus on.

Why there is no single legal checklist

The Equality Act does not say "meet standard X". What counts as a reasonable adjustment depends on the circumstances, including the size of the organisation and the cost of the change. Public sector bodies have separate, more specific accessibility regulations. Private clinics do not, so they rely on the general duty.

The Equality Act 2010 applies in England, Wales and Scotland. In Northern Ireland, disability discrimination in services is covered by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 instead, which also places a duty on service providers to make reasonable adjustments. A clinic there should read this guide with that Act in mind.

In practice, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, published by the W3C, are the yardstick most organisations use. WCAG 2.2 is the current version^[2]. Meeting level AA does not guarantee legal compliance, but it is strong evidence that a website has been built with disabled users in mind, and it gives your team a concrete list to work from.

What WCAG 2.2 AA covers

WCAG is organised around four principles: content should be perceivable and operable, it should be understandable, and it should work with the browsers and assistive technology people use. At level AA, that includes requirements such as:

• Text alternatives for meaningful images.
• Sufficient colour contrast between text and background.
• Content that reflows at high zoom without sideways scrolling.
• Everything usable with a keyboard, with a visible focus indicator.
• Headings and labels that describe their content.
• Error messages that identify the problem and suggest a fix.
• Consistent navigation across pages.

WCAG 2.2 added criteria that are particularly relevant to clinic websites, including a minimum size for targets such as buttons and links, keeping focused items from being hidden behind sticky headers, and not asking people to re-enter information they have already provided in the same process^[2].

Barriers that matter most on clinic websites

Testing your own site

You can find many problems without specialist tools:

1. Keyboard test. Put the mouse aside and use Tab, Shift and Tab, Enter and the arrow keys to reach every link and complete the appointment form. Note anywhere you get stuck or lose track of where you are.
2. Zoom test. Zoom the browser to 200 per cent, then 400 per cent. Check that text reflows and nothing overlaps or disappears.
3. Phone test. Use the site on a phone outdoors. Check that text is readable and buttons are easy to tap.
4. Screen reader test. Turn on the screen reader built into your phone or computer and listen to the home page and a treatment page. Check that headings and buttons make sense when read aloud.

A professional audit adds systematic testing against every success criterion, but these four checks catch the barriers that stop people completing tasks.

The accessibility statement

An accessibility statement tells patients what standard your site aims to meet, what has been tested, any known issues and how to get information in another format or report a problem. It should be honest. A statement that names a known issue and offers an alternative, such as a phone number for appointments, is more useful than one that claims full compliance without testing. Our own accessibility statement is an example of the approach.

Beyond the website

Reasonable adjustments do not stop at the screen. The website should also tell patients what adjustments the clinic can make in person: step-free access, accessible toilets, hearing loops, longer appointments, or information in large print. Putting that on the location page helps patients plan their visit and is part of making the service accessible, not only the site.

Forms deserve the most attention

If only one part of a clinic website gets an accessibility review, it should be the appointment request form, because a form that cannot be completed stops a patient from getting care. A usable form has a visible label for every field, groups related options with a legend, shows errors as text at the top of the form and next to the field, keeps what the patient typed when an error appears, and works with a keyboard from start to finish. WCAG 2.2's criterion on redundant entry means patients should not be asked to type the same information twice in one process^[2].

Video, audio and documents

If your site uses video to explain a treatment or show your premises, it needs captions, and important visual information should also be described in text. Preparation instructions and price lists published only as PDFs are hard to use with screen readers and on phones; publishing them as web pages is usually simpler and helps everyone.

Colour, contrast and clinic branding

Soft, pale colours can make a clinic brand feel calm and welcoming. They can work well as backgrounds and accents, but text needs enough contrast to be read. WCAG 2.2 sets a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5 to 1 for normal text and 3 to 1 for large text, and 3 to 1 for the visible parts of controls and focus indicators^[2]. In practice that usually means keeping body text dark, using the brand's lighter shades for large headings, panels and illustrations, and checking button colours with a contrast tool before they are signed off.