This website is run by the NIHR Clinical Research Network North East and North Cumbria (NIHR CRN NENC). We want as many people as possible to be able to use our website, and we have designed it to be accessible.
On this website, you should be able to:
change colours, contrast levels, and fonts
zoom in up to 400% with text staying visible on the screen, and most images scaling without resolution loss
navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
read most of the website using a screen reader, including the latest versions of JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver
read most of the website on devices without a screen, like a braille computer
use the website, though not the search, even if Javascript is switched off
We've made the website text as simple as possible to understand, using plain English wherever possible. Some of our content is technical, and contains scientific terms and language. In some instances we have not been able to simplify the wording without changing the meaning of the text.
If you have a problem accessing any documents then AbilityNet has advice to help you make your device easier to use.
We have made this website as accessible as possible and we run fortnightly audits to identify any new problems.
Accessible documents:
All text in documents in the document library
We know that some parts of the website aren't fully accessible:
we have a number of documents in PDF and other formats not designed for accessibility. We have published a full list of these documents, including the accessibility options available for each one.
some content is embedded in our website, such as videos, and you cannot easily scale these on screen (but you can open a full screen version)
some content embedded in our HTML documents is not fully accessible.
If you have problems accessing information on this website, or would like any of our work in a more accessible format please email us details of your request to nenccommunications@nihr.ac.uk. We will consider your request, and aim to respond within 5 working days.
We are always looking to improve the accessibility of the website.
If you find any problems which aren't listed on this page, or think that we're not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, then please email nenccommunications@nihr.ac.uk with the details to let us know and help us improve.
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).
The NIHR is committed to making websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.
The vast majority of our website works correctly on any web technology.
Internet Explorer is no longer supported by Microsoft, and while the site may work in more recent versions of IE, we do not recommend its use.
You may experience unexpected behaviour in other browsers, although we use fully validated code which should work on any other browser.
We are aware of the following issues within the links on our site:
Many older PDF files contain broken links which do not resolve - we do not intend to resolve these as it is a disproportionate burden.
We scan the site regularly for broken links, and look to fix them as soon as they are identified.
Our site favours the HTML format for documents.
PDFs are not able to comply with the requirements of the web accessibility standard, and we do not generally upload new PDFs. Where we do create new PDFs, we use the PDF/UA standard which is more accessible.
We strive to make all of our content accessible. We are aware of the following issues with images and video on our site:
Video content uses automated closed captioning and transcripting, and this is often inaccurate. We review these captions and ensure their accuracy manually.
There are some images with accessibility problems and we are working on improving their accessibility.
We are aware of the following issues interacting with out site:
Our main navigation menu and our buttons are not always fully accessible. Our developers are fixing these as a matter of priority.
We are planning to automate testing against the W3C WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 on a regular basis. We will scan our web pages, and test against all criteria in the guidelines which are possible to automate.
The regular report will be reviewed by the Communicatins team, with any actions taken and prioritised into our future work. We aim to fix all high priority issues within two weeks of them being identified.
In addition, we conduct internal testing against known accessibility issues which are not able to be found through automated testing, on a sampled basis.
We are actively looking to improve the accessibility on our website. The improvements below have been identified on our current work schedule.
Finish converting all possible non-accessible documents to HTML format: Ongoing
Ensure all images used on the site have appropriate metadata: Ongoing
Complete accessibility code review, and make the menu, buttons and other site architecture more accessible: Ongoing
Some documents on our site are not accessible. We are working hard to ensure that we convert as many of these as we can to online forms or HTML format, providing the remainder in the most accessible format possible.