Patient Accessibility for Clinic Websites, Audited and Fixed

Why accessibility matters more for clinics

A clinic's patients include people who are unwell, in pain, recovering from surgery, or living with long-term conditions that affect sight, movement or concentration. Someone with a broken wrist may be using a keyboard with one hand. Someone recovering from a stroke may need larger text. Someone with low vision may use a screen reader. If your website does not work for them, they cannot request an appointment online, and some will not try again.

The Equality Act 2010 places a duty on service providers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, and RNIB's guidance for organisations explains that the duty is anticipatory: you cannot wait until a disabled person wants to use your services^[1]. The Act does not name a technical standard for websites, but the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are the standard most organisations use to measure whether a site is usable. Our guide on accessibility and the Equality Act explains the relationship, including the different Act that applies in Northern Ireland.

What the audit covers

We test a representative set of pages: the home page, a treatment page, a clinician profile, the fees page, the location or contact page and the appointment form. Each is checked in four ways.

Automated checks

Automated tools catch missing alternative text, colour contrast failures, empty links and form fields without labels. They are fast and useful, but they find only part of the problem.

Keyboard testing

We use each page with the keyboard alone, checking that every link and button can be reached, that the focus outline is visible, that menus open and close, and that nothing traps the keyboard.

Screen reader testing

We listen to each page with a screen reader to check that headings make sense out of context, that images are described or correctly ignored, that form errors are announced, and that the appointment form can be completed without seeing the screen.

Zoom and reflow

We view each page at 200 and 400 per cent zoom to check that content reflows into a single column without sideways scrolling and that nothing overlaps or disappears.

Measured against WCAG 2.2 AA

WCAG 2.2 is the current version of the guidelines published by the W3C^[2]. It added success criteria that matter on clinic websites, such as the minimum size of tap targets, focus that is not hidden by sticky headers, and not asking people to re-enter information they have already given in the same process. Each finding in our report is tied to a specific success criterion so your team or any developer can see exactly what needs to change.

The report and the fixes

You receive a written report listing every issue, where it occurs, which success criterion it relates to, who it affects and how to fix it. Issues are grouped by priority:

1. Blocking. Problems that stop someone completing a task, such as a form that cannot be submitted with a keyboard.
2. Serious. Problems that make a task very hard, such as unlabelled buttons or low contrast text.
3. Moderate. Problems that cause friction, such as unclear link text or headings out of order.

We can fix the issues ourselves on most platforms, or hand the report to your developer. After fixes, we retest the same pages and update the report.

An accessibility statement that tells the truth

An accessibility statement should not claim full compliance unless testing supports it. We write a statement that describes what has been tested, what standard the site aims for, any known issues and how patients can ask for information in another format. A statement that admits a known limitation and offers an alternative is more useful to patients than one that claims perfection.

Keeping it accessible

Accessibility drifts as new pages, images and plugins are added. The handover includes a short checklist for your team: write alternative text for new images, use headings in order, keep link text descriptive, and check new forms with a keyboard. We can also repeat the audit once a year as part of ongoing care.

Who benefits

Accessibility work is often described as being for a small group of users. On a clinic website the group is larger than it looks. It includes people with permanent impairments, people with temporary ones such as a broken arm or an eye infection, older patients whose eyesight or dexterity has changed, and anyone using the site in difficult conditions, on a small screen, in bright light or while anxious. Clear structure, good contrast and forms that forgive mistakes help all of them.

Working with your developer or platform

If another developer looks after your site, the report is written so they can act on it: each issue names the page, the element, the success criterion and the change needed. If your site runs on a hosted platform with fixed templates, some issues may sit in the platform's code rather than yours. We separate those in the report, suggest workarounds where they exist, and give you wording to raise the rest with the platform provider.