Our accessibility information
This website is run by the National School of Healthcare Science (NSHCS), part of NHS England (NHSE). 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 300% without the text spilling off the screen
- navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
- navigate most of the website using 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.
How accessible are our websites
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible. We believe that fixing all known issues would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations.
For example:
- some pages and document attachments are not clearly written
- some pages are not capable of zooming to 300% without text spilling off the screen
- some pages are not easily navigable without a mouse
- some tables do not have row headers
- some pages have poor colour contrast
- some heading elements are not consistent
- some images do not have good alternative text
- some buttons are not correctly identified
- some error messages are not clearly associated with form controls
- many documents are in PDF format and are not accessible
- some content is embedded on pages, such as maps and videos, and these cannot be easily scaled on screen
- some data visualisation tools used in our websites currently use inaccessible technologies such as PowerBI and Tableau
How to request content in an accessible format
If you need information in a different format, please contact us and tell us:
- the web address (URL) of the content
- your name and email address
- the format you need, for example, audio CD, braille, BSL or large print, accessible PDF
We’ll consider your request and get back to you as soon as possible.
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, contact the NSHCS team at england.nshcs@nhs.net.
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 our websites accessibility
The National School of Healthcare Science is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the accessibility regulations.
Compliance status
Our websites are not compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.
Disproportionate burden
We’ve assessed the cost of accessibility auditing and fixing any issues found within our website. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
PDFs and other documents
We plan to fix the documents on the National School of Healthcare Science’s website, and replace them with accessible HTML pages.
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. For example, we do not plan to fix rarely viewed documents that are not required for essential services.
Where possible, any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards. Where this is not possible, we will endeavour to make the information available in an accessible format. If you need documents in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille please email england.nshcs@nhs.net
What we are doing to improve accessibility
Health Education England has a long-term, Government Digital Service (GDS) approved project, currently entering beta phase, designed to specifically address the rationalisation and reduction of the existing legacy web estate and make all of our websites fully compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, as a minimum. This project will create a digital service that aims to replace the multiple website management systems with a single platform for all our websites, including national, regional, local and programmes – like gov.uk or BBC.co.uk. Central to this service will be ensuring accessibility and a fully inclusive user experience. This service will start to go live in the Summer 2021.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was updated on 18 December 2023.
Our approach to accessibility testing is described in the disproportionate burden statement.