Accessibility statement

NIHR is committed to making its websites and mobile applications accessible, in accordance with national legislation transposing Directive (EU) 2016/2102 of the European Parliament and of the Council and in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This accessibility statement applies to https://cambridgebrc.nihr.ac.uk/, which is run by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).

Compliance status

Apart from the exemptions listed below, this site is fully compliant with the accessibility regulations.

This means that users can:

• zoom 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

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

WAVE highlighted some accessibility issues, which are:

• Empty buttons on all pages, which may be confusing if picked up by screen readers.
  • SOLUTION: We are working with our web developers to delete these from across the site.
• It is difficult to navigate and access information, including the “skip to main content” button which does not work smoothly.
  • We are working with our web developers to address these issues.
• “Our research” on the homepage has broken ARIA aria references, which may cause problems for screen readers.
  • SOLUTION: We are working with our web developers to overhaul our homepage, this will fix these errors.
• The two widgets on our side menu have skipped heading levels. We have asked our developers to investigate this and fix.
• Some photos and logos do not have a text alternative. Usually this does not present a problem as the image is decorative, but in some cases (for example on news story highlights on the homepage) they are hyperlinked, and alternative text is necessary for screen readers. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
  • SOLUTION: We are putting in text alternatives as we come across unlabelled hyperlinks.
• Our site contains documentation such as PDFs which are not currently accessible (see also “Disproportionate burden” below). Where PDFs are available we are also making html pages of their content. This is work in progress and we are also taking steps to make text-only alternative pages where PDFs are uploaded.

Disproportionate burden

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 website contains PDFs and Word documents that are essential to providing our service and these have been checked and fixed for accessibility.

There may be third-party content on our website that we do not own and therefore cannot fix to make fully accessible, where we come across these we will endeavour to redirect to more accessible html pages.

It is a disproportionate burden to update other non-essential older documents that predate 23 September 2023, including unsubtitled video content, and make fully accessible.

If you require any information on our website in a different format, please do contact us via our details below and we’ll action your request.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 4 July 2023. It was last reviewed on 4 December 2024.

We used a third-party accessibility tool called WAVE to test the accessibility of this website. WAVE can identify many accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors, but also facilitates human evaluation of web content. A full explanation of how this tool works can be found on WAVE’s website.

Feedback and contact information

If you wish to report any accessibility challenges in using this website, or if you require any information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please contact:

• email cuh.brccomms@nhs.net
• call 01223 348490 (please note however that our staff combine working from home with working in the office and so this phone is not always manned).

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 30 days. If you do not receive a response, please contact the NIHR Service Desk at 0207 333 5060 (internal or external) or visit https://www.support.nihr.ac.uk/sp (internal only) for assistance.

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).