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://arc-nwc.nihr.ac.uk/

Compliance status
This website is partially compliant with WCAG 2.0/2.1AA.

It is worth noting Google Sites are not fully WCAG 2.0/2.1 AA compliant due to the reasons specified under disproportionate burden_

Some images do not have a text alternative, 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 text alternatives for all images by September 2020. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.

Disproportionate burden
The breakdown of the existing Google Sites accessibility issues summarises the existing accessibility issues with Google Sites. Fixing for these accessibility issues is the responsibility of Google as providers of the Google Sites product. Therefore, fixes for these issues are beyond NIHR control. The only resolution to fixing these issues ourselves is to change website hosts to another supplier. We’ve assessed the cost of fixing these issues and believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We continue to work with Google in providing feedback and collaborating to ensure Google’s products are as accessible as possible.

Some of the documents and/or embedded content (e.g.Tablepress content) that we link to for additional information are outside our control and may not be fully accessible.

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. By September 2021, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 20/12/2022. It was last reviewed on 20/12/2022.

This website was last tested on September 2020. The test was conducted by the NIHR.

We used a third-party accessibility tool called ReciteMe to test the accessibility of this website. ReciteMe 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. If you used another tool that wasn’t WAVE, this paragraph can be edited as you wish so long as it describes/ links to how the tool works.

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. If you do not receive a response, please contact the NIHR Service Desk at 0207 333 5060 (internal or external) or visit https://www.support.nihr.ac.uk/sp (internal only) for assistance.

Enforcement procedure
If you do not receive a response to the above request, please contact the NIHR Service Desk (details above) for further escalation.

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).

This website has been built using a third party company and WordPress. Please see the NIHR Hub Accessibility Statement which gives more information regarding the general use of Google Sites, including contact details for users who require further Accessibility support.