Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to NIHR Research Design Service North West website, www.rds-nw.nihr.ac.uk.

This website is run by the NIHR Research Design Service North West.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • read most of the website using a screen reader

We have made the website text as simple as possible to understand, where feasible.

How accessible this website is

We have ensured that resources required to access our service are accessible. We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • most older videos do not have captions, although a number have associated transcripts
  • some links are not sufficiently descriptive, particularly with the slider in each section of our site

Feedback and contact information

If you have problems accessing information on this website, or would like any of our work in a more accessible format please email or call us with details of your request to:

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

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements, then please email rds-nw@lancaster.ac.uk with the details to let us know and help us improve.

Enforcement procedure

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 are not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

NIHR Research Design Service North West is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Some images do not have appropriate text alternatives, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

We plan to add and improve text alternatives for all images by end of 2020.

A small number of links in resources are not sufficiently descriptive. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (link purpose).

We plan to improve these links by the end of 2020. When we publish new content, we will make sure our use of images and links meets accessibility standards.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

We have ensured essential information on how users can access our service is provided in an accessible format. Accessible methods to access our service are also provided.

PDFs and other documents

We currently provide accessible means for accessing our service. Including a PDF form and telephone support. We are aiming to replace the PDF form within the next 4 months.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other content that is neither funded nor developed by, nor under our control. For example, we do not plan to fix PDF documents of presentations where the content was not produced by us.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other content published before 23 September 2018 if they are not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix PDF documents in our event archive.

Pre-recorded videos

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix videos published before 23 September 2020. We have a number of videos that complement information about our service but are not essential to access our service. We also have videos of presentations from our events all of which were published prior to 23 September 2020.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We plan to improve accessibility on this website by:

  • always ensuring new published content is accessible and has gone through accessibility checks
  • improving accessibility issues already identified by the end of 2020
  • carrying out twice yearly website checks, using the Wave tool, to ensure accessibility is upheld, fixing any issue identified as soon as possible after
  • running monthly automatic link checking and fixing any broken links as soon as possible after
  • we will endeavour to improve accessibility of video content published before 23 September 2020, where possible.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 21 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 21 September 2020.

This website was last tested on 18 September 2020. The test was carried out by the NIHR Research Design Service North West.

Testing was carried out on the overall site structure, content essential for accessing our service and our top 10 most popular pages over the last year.

Automatic checking of accessibility issues was carried out using the Wave tool. Some manual inspection was also carried out.

Broken links were checked using an automated tool. At the time of publishing this statement, there were no broken links on the website.