This website was last tested on 14th December 2023. We use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1 level A and level AA to test how accessible sexualhealth.cht.nhs.uk is.

We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test:

  • Looked at all mediums used on the site for example text, images, maps, videos, forms etc
  • Added at least one page per item to our sample list
  • Always include the homepage

How we checked

The test was carried out by The Health Informatics Service Web Department. Automated tests were used to check the accessibility of the site but they do not show most accessibility issues. We used Lighthouse to audit each page in the sample for accessibility issues. We used Wave and Axe DevTools to test for accessibility issues on pages that do not need users to sign in. Errors found were correlated and checked manually. A keyboard, tab through and zoom check was done. These tests were completed using a Google Chrome browser on Windows 10 with a 14 inch screen.

The issues we found

  • 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A) - Missing alternatvie text
  • 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A) and 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) (Level A) - Linked image(s) missing alternative text
  • 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A) - Suspicious alternative text
  • 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) (Level A) - Redundant links (adjacent links go to the same URL) are present
  • 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) (Level A) - Suspicious link text
  • 1.4.5 Images of Text (Level AA) - Text is present inside images
  • 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A), 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks (Level A), 2.4.6 Headings and Labels (Level AA) - Empty headings are present
  • 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A), 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks (Level A), 2.4.6 Headings and Labels (Level AA) - Heading levels have been skipped
  • 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) and 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence (Level A) - Some tables do not have table headers
  • 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) - Some table headers are empty 
  • 1.2.1 Prerecorded Audio-only and Video-only (Level A), 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded) (Level A) and 1.2.3 Audio Description or Media Alternative (Prerecorded) (Level A) - Embedded or linked YouTube videos are present and may not be fully accessible
  • 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) (Level AA) - Elements must have sufficient colour contrast
  • 2.1.1 (Keyboard) - The cookie policy notification cannot be closed through keyboard navigation
  • The site makes use of multiple PDFs, Word documents and PowerPoints. Some are a legal requirement. These are not accessible to some screen reader software.