Accessibility

This website is run by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. We want as many people as possible to be able to use our services.

The text should be clear and simple to understand. You should be able to:

• zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate most of the site using just a keyboard
• navigate most of the site using speech recognition software
• listen to most of the site using a screen reader (including the most recent version of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver).

NICE is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

Services covered by this statement

The statement applies to:

• The NICE website www.nice.org.uk
• NICE Docs
• Clinical Knowledge Summaries cks.nice.org.uk
• British National Formulary bnf.nice.org.uk
• British National Formulary for Children bnfc.nice.org.uk
• Mailchimp newsletters
• Identity management across services
• Syndication.

How accessible are our websites?

Parts of our websites are not fully accessible. These is because:

• many older documents are in PDF format and are not fully accessible
• some older Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents are not fully accessible
• some links and buttons are not understandable out of context
• some images do not have suitable alternative text
• some forms use reCAPTCHA.

We do not assume responsibility for third party applications.

From March 2021 some NICE content on COVID-19 has been published to the MAGIC website, which is owned and operated by the MAGIC Evidence Ecosystem Foundation. NICE is not responsible for the operation of this website. As this website is not yet fully accessible, we also provide this content in the form of an accessible PDF.

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Feedback and contact information

We want everyone to get the best experience from this website. We're working hard to improve digital accessibility. Please let us know if you:

• would like to request alternative versions of our downloadable documents
• find any accessibility problems that are not listed on this page
• think there's information we should include on this page
• want to talk about how we're improving accessibility.

We'll respond to your request within 20 days.

You can contact us by:

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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).

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Visiting us in person

If you're attending a meeting in our offices, please contact the organiser before your visit. We have meeting rooms with audio induction loops available.

Members of our advisory committees and other ad hoc advisory groups are reimbursed for expenses incurred on NICE business (Word). This includes having a carer, support worker, or other professional accompany you to a meeting.

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Technical information about NICE.org.uk's accessibility

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

• Image links are present that have insufficient colour contrast between the text and the background colour. Some buttons do not have distinguishable characteristics that indicate they are interactive elements. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.1 (Use of Colour).
• Some image links do not contain discernable link text or alternative text that describes the links destination or purpose. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content) or 2.4.4 (Link Purpose - in context).
• Search page and some filters update on input of some form controls. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.2.2 (On Input).
• The order in which some page elements receive focus is not logical. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.3 (Focus Order).
• Elements are present that reference duplicate ID attribute values. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 (Parsing).
• Missing alternative text on images. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content).
• The state of expandible elements is not identified. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value).
• Some tables within the shared learning collection are maked up incorrectly using aria roles instead of table elements. This failes WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (info and relationships). 
• Video content contains text that is not conveyed to screen reader users. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.1 (Audio-only and Video-only (Pre-recorded)), 1.2.3. (Audio Description or Media Alternative (Pre-recorded)) and 1.2.5 (Audio Description (Pre-recorded)).
• Links are present that are not descriptive of the destination or purpose in or out of content. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose (In Context)).
• Form elements are present that are not descriptive of their function or purpose. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels).

We're working on these problems and aim to have fixed them by December 2024.

There are thousands of PDFs created before January 2019 that are not fully accessible. We're working on fixing these. We're prioritising the most frequently downloaded documents and those most clearly related to disability issues.

We aim to make documents important for providing our services accessible by December 2024.

Disproportionate burden

Making some documents accessible would prove to be a disproportionate burden. These are:

• Evidence reviews. We are developing an accessible evidence review template which we will use for future content.

Content that's not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

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. This includes our visual summaries.
• Documents supplied to us by third parties, for example, as part of our appeals process. This content is exempt from the accessibility regulations as it is third party content that’s under someone else’s control and we did not pay for or develop it.

Audit

This website was last tested in October 2020. The test was carried out by Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC).

We selected a sample of pages representing the different templates and layouts used across the site. We also included the most frequently accessed pages. The aim was to cover the different content, functions and processes that can be done on the website.