Built to be read, not just looked at
A sizeable share of UK clinicians read differently — dyslexia, low vision, ADHD, migraine, or simply a phone held at arm's length between patients. The reading settings are on every page, and this statement says plainly what works today and what does not yet.
Reading settingsThe control on every page
Look for the accessibility button in the bottom-right corner of any page. It opens six settings that apply across the whole site and are remembered on your device — no account needed, nothing sent to us.
| Setting | Options | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Text size | Normal · Larger · Largest | Scales the whole page up to 130% and reflows it, so nothing is cut off. Your browser's own zoom still works on top of this. |
| Typeface | Standard · Readable | Switches to Atkinson Hyperlegible, designed by the Braille Institute so that similar letter shapes stay distinguishable, with wider letter and word spacing. |
| Line spacing | Normal · Roomy | Opens line height to 1.85 and adds space between paragraphs and list items — the spacing targets in WCAG 2.2. |
| Contrast | Standard · Higher | Darkens body text to near-black, strengthens every hairline and table border, and underlines links. |
| Motion | Standard · Reduced | Stops transitions and animations. If your operating system already asks for reduced motion, that is respected without touching this. |
| Visual noise | Standard · Calmer | Removes shadows, hover movement and background gradients. Safety colours are never removed — a red card stays red. |
Settings do not print. A page you send to PDF comes out in the standard layout.
Beyond the togglesChoices baked into the design
- No meaning carried by colour alone. Every review-status pill, red flag and 2WW tag carries a word and a symbol as well as a colour. A protocol is readable in greyscale.
- Real tables stay tables. An earlier build restacked clinical tables into cards on phones; clinicians said they preferred tables, so columns are now sized in proportion to their content instead.
- Semantic structure. Headings are properly nested, pathway steps are lists, and clinical tables use real table markup with header cells — so a screen reader announces the structure rather than a wall of text.
- Visible focus. Keyboard focus is always shown, never suppressed, and collapsible sections open on Enter or Space with
aria-expandedstate. - Nothing hidden from print. Collapsible sections are forced open in the print copy — a folded section must never be missing from a PDF.
- Deep links reveal. Jumping to a folded section opens it first, so a link can never land on hidden content.
Honest statusWhere we stand against WCAG 2.2 AA
This site has not been through a formal independent accessibility audit. The table below is our own assessment, and we would rather publish it with the gaps showing than claim a level we have not had tested.
| Area | Status | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Text contrast (1.4.3) | Met | Body and UI text measured at 4.5:1 or better against its own background; the Higher-contrast setting raises this further. |
| Use of colour (1.4.1) | Met | Status and severity always carry text and a symbol alongside colour. |
| Text spacing (1.4.12) | Met | Content reflows without loss when spacing is increased; the Roomy setting applies the target values directly. |
| Resize text (1.4.4) / Reflow (1.4.10) | Met | Pages reflow to 320px and to 200% zoom without horizontal scrolling of body content. |
| Keyboard (2.1.1) and focus visible (2.4.7) | Mostly | Core navigation, tabs, collapsible sections and the reading panel are fully keyboard-operable. Some older interactive tools have not been re-tested. |
| Screen-reader labelling (4.1.2) | Mostly | Landmarks, headings and controls are labelled. Some complex pathway diagrams need better described alternatives. |
| Motion (2.3.3) | Met | prefers-reduced-motion is respected, and the Reduced setting overrides regardless. |
| Captions and transcripts (1.2.x) | Gap | Where audio or spoken AI output is used, transcripts are not yet provided everywhere. |
| Independent audit | Gap | No third-party audit has been commissioned. Testing so far is internal, including with clinicians using the readable-typeface settings. |
What we are doing nextThe order of work
- Described text alternatives for the visual pathway diagrams, starting with the high-risk pathways.
- Transcripts for spoken AI output and any audio content.
- A keyboard-only pass across the older interactive tools.
- Testing sessions with GPs and trainees who use assistive technology or read with dyslexia — if that is you, we would genuinely like to hear from you.
- An independent audit once the above are in place, rather than before.
Tell usIf something here blocks you
If any page is hard or impossible to use, email us with the page address and what happened. We treat an access barrier on a clinical page the same way we treat a clinical error on one — see how we keep content safe for the response times.
If you need a specific page in another format — larger print, plain text, or a described version — ask and we will produce it.