Accessibility Statement
NIHR is committed to making its websites and mobile applications accessible, in accordance with national legislation transposing Directive (EU) 2016/2102 of the European Parliament and of the Council and in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
This accessibility statement applies to https://manchesterbrc.nihr.ac.uk
Compliance status
This website is partially compliant with WCAG 2.0/2.1AA, due to the non-compliance/exemptions listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content listed in the below sections is non-accessible for the following reason(s):
We are aware that our main navigation system allows for sub navigation only to be accessed using hover intent events only. We are looking to address this in early 2024 to remove the limit this places on users using only touch and keyboard navigation and implement a fully accessible menu system using aria roles and attributes
Our sub (in-page) sectional navigation system does allow for keyboard and touch event interaction but could be improved with better semantic structural patterns, again enhanced with aria roles and attributes. We are looking to address this in early 2024.
Our homepage carousel uses an incorrect semantic structure to indicate and paginate slides which could be confusing to screenreader users (links instead of buttons).
We are looking to update this to be semantically correct in early 2024.
Our toggle/accordion boxes are inaccessible to keyboard users as they don’t accept focus currently. We are looking to address this in early 2024 with an update to correct semantic structural patterns enhanced with aria roles and attributes.
Our site may contain links to documentation such as PDFs or Word files (some of which may be provided by third parties) which may not have been checked for accessibility. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages during 2024 where possible.
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. Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
Our site contains embedded material which is provided by third parties. Although the accessibility of this content is beyond our control, we’ve done our best to ensure it’s as accessible as possible. If you require this information in a different format, please do contact us via our details below and we’ll action your request.
Our site contains older pages and content articles which may not have an optimised semantic structure. We acknowledge that screen reader users may have more difficulty with this content than expected. We are hoping to address this by December 2024 but only after a review completed by July 2024 where this may fall under disproportionate burden (see below).
Disproportionate burden
We’re actively assessing the cost of mitigating these issues with disproportionate burden (within the meaning of the accessibility regulations) in mind. Please check back for updates to this statement periodically.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on Wednesday 20 December 2023.
It was last reviewed on Wednesday 20 December 2023.
This website was last tested on Tuesday 18 July 2023.
The test was conducted by the NIHR, in collaboration with our digital supplier.
We used a third-party accessibility tool called WAVE to test the accessibility of this website. WAVE can identify many accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors, but also facilitates human evaluation of web content. A full explanation of how this tool works can be found on WAVE’s website.
Feedback and contact information
If you wish to report any accessibility challenges in using this website, or if you require any information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please contact:
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 30 days.
Enforcement procedure
If you do not receive a response to the above request, please contact the NIHR Service Desk (details below) for further escalation.
NIHR Service Desk – 0207 333 5060
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).