Accessibility Statement

Health Service Journal (HSJ) is committed to ensuring its digital products, services and experiences are accessible and inclusive. Our digital content and website should enable fair and equal access for disabled people and those with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive impairments.

As part of that, HSJ measures itself against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which define the standard and success criteria for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. The guidelines outline three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA.

Our goal is to meet and exceed the requirements of WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance to provide the optimum user experience. We aim to apply some AAA success criteria.

Compatibility with browsers and assistive technology

The website is expected to work with more recent versions of the web browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox on Win 10 and 11, and Safari on macOS Monterey and Big Sur.

If compatible with your Windows setup, the latest updates to OS can be installed from Microsoft.
If compatible with your Mac, the latest versions to OS can be installed from the Apple Store.

Technical specifications

Accessibility of the website relies on the following technologies to work with the particular combination of web browser and any assistive technologies or plugins installed on your computer:

  • HTML
  • WAI-ARIA
  • CSS
  • JavaScript
  • PHP

These technologies are relied upon for conformance with the accessibility standards used.

Limitations and alternatives

Despite our best efforts to ensure accessibility of the HSJ website, there may be some limitations. Below is a description of known limitations, and, where we are aware of them, potential solutions. Please contact us if you observe an issue not listed below.

Known limitations for the website:

  1. Alternative text: Images may not have sufficiently detailed alternative text. We are in the process of reviewing our images, with work on alternative text expected to begin later in 2023. If you need alternative text for any images, please contact us.
  2. Small, low-quality images: We are aware some of the images are small in size and become pixelated when zoomed in, which could be a particular problem for users with visual impairments or people accessing the website on a mobile phone. We are planning a review of our images, including removing smaller, lower-quality images from the website, and this work is expected to begin later in 2023. If you encounter an issue, please contact us.
  3. White space: We are aware some pages of the website have a lot of white space when zoomed in, which may create difficulties for mobile phone users or those with visual impairments. If you encounter an issue or require further assistance, please contact us.
  4. Colour contrast: Some text may be difficult to read because of insufficient colour contrast. We are also aware of instances of insufficient colour contrast when the website is being tabbed through on a keyboard. If you encounter an issue, please contact us.
  5. Font size: Some of the text on the website is a small font, which may be difficult for some users to read. If you encounter an issue, please contact us.
  6. PDF documents: Some PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software because of limitations in the way the document was created. In many cases, PDF documents linked or uploaded to the HSJ website are created by third parties so, unfortunately, an alternative is not available.
  7. Embedded audio: Some embedded audio content may not have captions because of limitations when it was produced. If you need a transcript, please contact us.
  8. Insufficient descriptions for links and iframes: Links and iframes may not have sufficient plain text descriptions, meaning screen reader users may struggle to understand the context. We are aware this is a particular issue in the comments section at the bottom of articles. If you need more details on any specific element of the website, please contact us.
  9. Animated advertisements: Some of the advertisements and banners on the website use animation which may be distracting, be hard to read or otherwise create difficulties for some users. Most adverts can be closed by hovering over them and pressing on the cross button which appears in the top right-hand corner. If you encounter any further issues, please contact us.
  10. High number of links on home page: We are aware there are a high number of links on some pages, particularly the home page, which may create difficulties for keyboard users/those not using a mouse. We are working on reducing the number of links but, due to limitations with the way the website is set up, it is unlikely we will be able to completely solve this problem. If you encounter an issue, please contact us.
  11. Menu content automatically expands: We are aware the navigation bars automatically expand when the main category is selected, meaning keyboard users/those not using a mouse will need to tab through the entire expanded menu before being able to select the next navigation category. If you encounter an issue or require further assistance, please contact us.
  12. Headings: We are aware the heading styling is inconsistent in some parts of the website, which may create difficulties in navigating the website for screen reader users. If you encounter an issue or require further assistance, please contact us.
  13. Third party links: This website contains links to other websites which may not follow the same accessibility standards. We have limited control over the quality of content provided by third party websites and are not responsible for their content. If you experience any issues after following a link to a website outside of the HSJ domain, please contact the third party directly for support.

Assessment approach

HSJ assessed the accessibility of its website using the following methods:

  • Self-evaluation: using a combination of automated and manual testing tools
  • Snapshot audit provided by an external consultant

Feedback and formal complaints

For feedback or formal complaints, please contact us if you encounter any accessibility barriers.

Date

This statement was created on 17 March 2022, and was updated on 31 July 2024.