Accessibility statement for Manage Your Referral (NHS e-Referral Service)

The statement describes:

• How accessible the Manage Your Referral (MYR) service is
• What we are doing to meet the regulations
• What to do if you have a problem

We are committed to making Manage Your Referral as accessible as possible for everyone, including those with visual, hearing, cognitive and motor impairments. We are constantly working towards improving the accessibility of this service to ensure we provide equal access to all our users.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. This is an external site with suggestions to make your computer or device more accessible.

We know some parts of the Manage Your Referral website are not fully accessible:

• some parts may not be fully compatible with screen readers
• the text on certain pages will not re-flow when you change text size or the size of the browser window
• there is no mandatory field markup
• keyboard highlighting does not function on certain pages
• users are not informed of inactive timeouts

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of our service. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact: [email protected]

When contacting us, please provide:

• the page URL (web page address)
• detail of the issue encountered (and if on a mobile device or desktop)
• detail of any particular software or assistive technology being used (for example browser, screen reader)

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you're not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

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

The Manage Your Referral service is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

The following items do not comply with the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria:

Guideline 1.3 Adaptable

1.3.1 Information & Relationships

Users are able to tab to page links, but they are not recognised by some screen readers.  Some links are read out in the wrong order.

‘Skip to main content’ link doesn't work on error pages.

Select pages do not show field set legends, table elements and form labels correctly for effective navigation by screen readers.

1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence

Zoomtext's AppReader feature does not read out enough information for effective user navigation.

There is a lack of ordered lists on some pages and screen readers may read out extra hidden fields, making it cumbersome for users to navigate efficiently with screen readers.

1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose

Auto-complete attributes may not work with all browsers and/or devices.

Guideline 1.4 Distinguishable

1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)

There may not be sufficient colour contrast between font and background colours for some page links.

1.4.4 Resize Text

When resizing text on Android devices, some elements are increased but other elements remain the same size and do not reflect the increase in font size.

1.4.12 Text Spacing

Text on some pages may not flow appropriately when the text spacing or line height is adjusted, and horizontal scrolling may be introduced.

1.4.13 Content on Hover or Focus

Text and button elements are not being picked up by the NVDA screen reader in Google Chrome when the cursor is hovered over these elements.

Guideline 2.2 Enough Time

2.2.6 Timeouts

Users are not currently warned of an inactive timeout and it is not possible to extend their time on a page.  We plan to introduce appropriate timeout warning messages with the ability to extend session times.

Guideline 2.4 Navigable

2.4.2 Page Titled

When using Google Chrome and TalkBack (Android), the user is not informed when a new page has loaded (for certain pages).

2.4.3 Focus Visible

Users must tab through a hidden element that disrupts the order of the content. When the user has tabbed to the hidden element the focus is not visible.

When tabbing components on a page, the visual highlight remains on the previous element until another link or button is encountered.

There are instances of hidden elements on some pages.  This means that tabbing through content may disrupt ordering and focus may be lost.

When tabbing through content on a page, visual highlighting may remain on the previous element.

2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context)

Labels on some buttons appear the same to screen readers.

2.4.6 Headings and Labels

JAWS and VoiceOver users may have difficulty identifying level headings on certain pages.  Talkback (Android) users may also experience issues with reading out year of birth and level headings.  We are planning to add descriptive text to read numbers in the desired format, as well as carrying out a full review of page level headings.

Guideline 3.3 Input Assistance

3.3.2 Labels or Instructions

Screen readers are not informed of mandatory form fields.  We plan to introduce appropriate information messages, so users are aware of form controls.

Guideline 4.1 Compatible

4.1.2 Name, Role, Value

Telephone numbers may not be read out correctly.

4.1.3 Status Messages

Although there are status messages displayed on-screen, some screen readers are not reading out these messages unless they are directly navigated to.

The issues above will be addressed as part of our commitment to improve our website’s accessibility on a regular and continuous basis.

Disproportionate burden

We have been able to continue testing the website remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic using almost all the recommended and popular assistive technologies and browsers.

However, we have been unable to complete the work with Dragon NaturallySpeaking software as this requires access to a dedicated accessibility lab which is currently not in operation due to the current situation.  Once restrictions have lifted, we aim to complete accessibility testing with all technologies.

We do not currently have any content which falls outside the scope of the accessibility regulations.

We test for accessibility every time there is a new release of the Manage Your Referral service. As well as testing new features, we run a series of tests which check and ensure the website performs against set accessibility criteria.  These tests are maintained and updated for each release.

In preparation for the production of this statement, a period of accessibility testing was performed using the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 (WCAG) for Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust. This was completed on the 21 of July 2020.

Accessibility testing was carried out across a range of devices, operating systems, and browsers. These were derived from statistics based on what devices, operating systems and browsers our users access Manage Your Referral on currently.

The assistive tools that were employed were based on Government Digital Services (GDS) guidelines on testing with assistive technologies.

The issues identified as part of the testing (above) are held on our list of items for future development or enhancement. We are committed to becoming WCAG 2.1 AA compliant and as such, issues are actively prioritised and resolved.

This statement was prepared on 16 September 2020.