An accessible practice website is one that every patient can read and use: the patient who is eighty and has left their glasses at home, the one who is anxious and skimming, the one on a small phone on the bus, the one who listens to the page through a screen reader, and the one who cannot use a mouse. The standard that describes this is WCAG 2.2, and its criteria are more ordinary than the name suggests. This post puts them in plain words, says what UK law expects of a private practice, and ends with four checks you can make today.
Key points
- Accessibility is a property of every page, not a page or a badge.
- WCAG 2.2 level AA is the reference: contrast, reflow, keyboard, labels, target size, captions.
- The Equality Act 2010 duty to make reasonable adjustments reaches websites; the public sector regulations do not reach a private practice.
- Four checks take ten minutes: zoom, tab through, listen, and try the form’s errors.
Who an accessible website is for
The W3C’s definition, which the web.dev course shares, is a website that people with disabilities can use in a meaningful and equivalent way. For a practice the list is concrete. Older eyes need contrast and text that can be enlarged. Worry narrows attention, so short lines and plain words matter more here than elsewhere. A small phone shows a single column and is often held in one hand. A screen reader reads headings, links, image descriptions and form labels aloud, in order, so each has to make sense on its own. A keyboard user moves from control to control and needs to see where they are.
Most people join one of these groups some of the time: a broken wrist, bright sun on the screen, a child on the other arm. They are the patients the post on what a private practice website needs was written for; this post is about whether they can use it.
Reading the page: contrast, reflow, alternatives, captions
- Text contrast. Text and its background differ by at least 4.5:1, or 3:1 for large text. The W3C set the ratio to make up for the loss of contrast sensitivity that comes with moderately low vision, which includes most eyes past a certain age. Pale grey on white is the common failure.
- Reflow. When a reader enlarges the text, up to four times, it wraps into one column at a width of 320 pixels with no sideways scrolling.
- Text alternatives. Every image that carries meaning has text that says the same thing, so a screen reader can say it. A decorative image is marked as such, so the reader skips it. A phone number inside a picture has no alternative and cannot be dialled.
- Captions. A video with speech has captions.
Using the page: keyboard, focus, links, targets, movement, forms
- Keyboard. Everything works with Tab, Enter and the arrow keys: the menu, the cookie banner, the form, the map link.
- Visible focus. As you tab, you can see which element is selected. A design that hides the focus ring for tidiness removes the keyboard user’s cursor.
- Links and buttons that say what they do. “Book an appointment” rather than “here”, because a screen reader can read the links of a page as a list, out of context.
- Target size. A link or button is at least 24 by 24 pixels, or has that much space around it, so a hand that shakes, or a thumb on a bus, does not hit the one next to it.
- Movement that can be stopped. A carousel or a video that starts on its own has a pause control, and nothing flashes.
- Forms. Each field has a visible label, and when something is wrong the message names the field and says what to fix, in words. Red alone is not a message.
What UK law says, in one careful paragraph
This is a description of the law as published, not legal advice. The Equality Act 2010 places a duty on anyone providing a service to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, and section 20 says that where the adjustment concerns information, the steps include providing it in an accessible format. The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s guidance on services reads that duty as covering websites: a service provider must make reasonable adjustments so that its website is accessible, whether it has a one-page website or a very sophisticated one; its examples are a person using text-to-speech software and one who cannot use a mouse.
The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 are a different thing. They require public sector bodies to meet WCAG 2.2 level AA and to publish an accessibility statement. An NHS organisation is a public sector body; a private practice is not, so those regulations do not apply to it. The Equality Act duty does, as the government’s own guidance notes.
Four checks you can make yourself
- Zoom to 200 % with the keyboard (Ctrl and plus) on a treatment page. The text should wrap into one column with nothing cut off and nothing overlapping.
- Press Tab repeatedly from the top of the home page. You should see where you are at every step, reach the menu, the phone link and the form, and be able to close the cookie banner without a mouse.
- Turn on your phone’s built-in screen reader and listen to the home page for one minute. Do the headings make sense in order, do the links say where they go, and do the images say something useful or nothing at all?
- Open the contact form and press send with nothing filled in. The message should name the field and say what is wrong, in words.
Write down every point where you hesitated, then do the same with the ten-minute test in the post on checking your practice website from your phone. Between them you have most of what a review finds on a small site.
Common questions
Does a private practice need an accessibility statement?
Not under the 2018 regulations, which apply to public sector bodies. A short statement is still worth having: it says what the site aims for and how a patient can ask for information in another form, which is the kind of adjustment the Equality Act expects a service provider to have thought about in advance.
Does an accessible website have to look plain?
No. Contrast, spacing, clear labels, visible focus and generous targets are decisions made inside the design, and a good design makes them without anyone noticing. The accessibility work on a medical website is built in from the earliest sketch, not added at the end.
Does accessibility help with search?
The things that make a page accessible are the things search engines and AI assistants read: headings in order, links that say where they go, text alternatives for images, and text that is text rather than a picture. A page a screen reader can follow is a page a machine can follow.
This is part of the accessibility work on every website we look after.
References
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, W3C (2024) — w3.org · Accessed 2026-10-11
- Understanding Success Criterion 1.4.3: Contrast (Minimum), W3C Web Accessibility Initiative — w3.org · Accessed 2026-10-11
- Understanding Success Criterion 1.4.10: Reflow, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative — w3.org · Accessed 2026-10-11
- Understanding Success Criterion 2.5.8: Target Size (Minimum), W3C Web Accessibility Initiative — w3.org · Accessed 2026-10-11
- Equality Act 2010, section 20: Duty to make adjustments, legislation.gov.uk (2010) — legislation.gov.uk · Accessed 2026-10-11
- Equality Act 2010: Summary Guidance on Services, Public Functions and Associations, Equality and Human Rights Commission (2014) — equalityhumanrights.com · Accessed 2026-10-11
- Understanding accessibility requirements for public sector bodies, GOV.UK — gov.uk · Accessed 2026-10-11
- Learn Accessibility, web.dev — web.dev · Accessed 2026-10-11