Accessibility statement

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible: 

• Many PDFs suffer from a range of non-compliances listed further down this document that could mean they are difficult to access.
• Some pages contain elements that cause issues with some screen readers, in particular Dragon and VoiceOver.

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:  

• email commsteam@hta.gov.uk  
• call 020 7269 1900  

We will consider your request and get back to you in 10 days.

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact the HTA communications team:  

• commsteam@hta.gov.uk
• 02072691900  

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), 0808 800 0082.

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

This website is partly compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.  

This website last underwent an accessibility audit in March 2022. 

This audit discovered 10 non-compliances against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard listed below: 

1. The OneTrust cookie banner button does not have an accessible name.
2. On some page elements, the default tab focus indicator is visible.
3. Some menus read out uninformative information when using the combination of MacOS, Safari, and VoiceOver.
4. User’s using Dragon cannot interact with some drop-down fields.
5. Some form buttons do not announce their selection status when using VoiceOver on iOS.
6. Some screen readers have issues with the ARIA label for Google ReCAPTCHA.
7. The Find a Medical School page contains elements where two-dimensional scrolling is required when zoomed in at 400%.
8. Google ReCAPTCHA is not usable when the page is zoomed to 200%.
9. A PDF lacks a table heading
10. A graphical element in a PDF does not have 3:1 contrast for the text and its background (2:1).

Although no other issues were observed, any other issues discovered will also be displayed here. 

As a public regulator, we rely on using PDF and other format text documents to capture important information. Many of these documents are essential to providing our services or contain important information not available elsewhere.

Some of our data releases published between 23 September 2018 and 31 August 2021 are not fully accessible. Some of our documents, including our inspection reports are not accessible.

For example, some of them:

• are not tagged up properly - for example, they do not contain proper headings
• are not written in plain English
• contain images and charts without textual description
• tables in PDF documents are not tagged to give information such as row and column titles
• are hard to navigate using a screen reader or other assistive technology

We are in the process of redesigning our inspection reports to further meet accessibility standards, with an aim to deliver more accessible and user-friendly content. 

To continue improving accessibility and addressing these remaining issues, we are planning to undertake a comprehensive accessibility audit in the second quarter of 2023. We are committed to maintaining and improving the accessibility of our website to ensure it meets the highest accessibility standards. 

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. For example, we do not plan to fix annual reports published before this date. 

This statement was prepared on 06/04/21. It was last reviewed and updated on 31/05/23. 

 Our website was last tested in March 2022. The test was conducted by a third-party accessibility audit company, Zoonou. This audit was performed on the website during its Public Beta stage, and no major changes to the design or content have taken place since then that would necessitate a new audit. The audit was carried out in two stages: an initial report followed by a retest once the issues had been addressed by our website developers. After this process, we were left with 12 outstanding accessibility issues.