Community pharmacy patients skew older, and a large share live with impaired sight, hearing, dexterity or cognition. A pharmacy website that is hard to read or hard to operate fails exactly the people most likely to need a repeat prescription delivered. This guide explains what accessibility means in practice for a UK pharmacy website, what the law expects, and where to start without a specialist.
Why it matters more for a pharmacy than most businesses
Look at who actually uses a pharmacy website: patients on several regular medicines, carers ordering for a parent, people with a new diagnosis searching for a service, someone with a hand injury trying to book a consultation on a phone. Many are over 65; many use screen magnification, larger text, voice control or a screen reader. A layout that a young designer finds elegant — light grey text, tiny form labels, a dark theme with thin fonts — is unreadable to a meaningful share of them. Accessibility is not a compliance box for a pharmacy; it is the difference between a repeat form that gets used and one that generates a phone call.
What the law expects
The Equality Act 2010 requires service providers not to discriminate against disabled people and to make reasonable adjustments, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s guidance is clear that this applies to websites. There is no specific technical standard imposed on a private pharmacy’s own website — the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 apply to public bodies, not to NHS contractors’ commercial sites. In practice, though, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA are the benchmark an adjustment would be measured against, and they are what the NHS itself uses. Aim for AA and you are on firm ground.
The basics that fix most of it
Contrast and text
Body text should meet a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background (WCAG 1.4.3). Dark ink on white passes; mid-grey on white often does not. Text should scale to 200% without breaking the layout, so use relative units and avoid fixed-height boxes. Keep line length moderate and paragraphs short; older readers lose their place in wide, dense blocks.
Forms
Every input needs a visible label, not just placeholder text that disappears when you start typing. Group related fields, mark required ones clearly, and show errors next to the field in plain English (“Please enter your date of birth as DD/MM/YYYY”), not as a red outline alone. Make tap targets at least 44 pixels on a phone. Repeat prescription and nomination forms are where this matters most, because they are completed under some stress and often by people who do not use forms every day.
Keyboard and focus
Everything should be reachable and operable with the Tab key and Enter, in a sensible order, with a visible focus outline. Voice-control and switch users depend on this, and it is the first thing a screen reader user will notice is broken.
Images and icons
Meaningful images need descriptive alt text; decorative ones need an empty alt so screen readers skip them. Icons used as buttons need a text label or an accessible name. A services page made of six unlabeled icons is invisible to a screen reader.
Structure
One H1 per page, headings in order, lists as real lists, links that make sense out of context (“Book a flu jab”, not “click here”). Screen reader users navigate by headings and links; good structure is navigation for them.
Motion and time
Respect the operating system’s reduced-motion setting, avoid autoplaying carousels, and do not put a timer on forms.
Pharmacy-specific points
- Opening hours in text, not only in an image or a Google map embed.
- Phone number as a tap-to-call link; for many older patients the site’s job is to make the call easier, not to replace it.
- Plain-English service pages. Reading age matters: describe Pharmacy First conditions in everyday words and keep eligibility questions short.
- Consistent layout across service pages so a patient who has booked one service can book another without relearning the page.
- Language support where your patients need it; a well-translated repeat form removes a barrier for a large group in many areas.
Testing without a specialist
- Turn your phone’s text size up to the largest setting and use the repeat form. Does everything still fit and make sense?
- Unplug the mouse and complete a booking with the keyboard alone.
- Turn on the built-in screen reader (VoiceOver on iPhone, TalkBack on Android) and listen to the homepage. Can you tell what each button does?
- Run the free website check: its accessibility score is Google’s automated audit and catches contrast, label and alt-text problems.
- Ask a patient over 70 to order a repeat while you watch, and say nothing.
An accessibility statement
Publishing a short statement — what standard you aim for, known limitations, and how to ask for information in another format — is not required of a private pharmacy but signals you have thought about it and gives patients a route to ask. Keep it honest; do not claim full WCAG conformance without testing.
What this looks like on a PharmGrowth site
Light backgrounds, dark text, visible labels, large tap targets, one accent colour, real headings and keyboard-operable forms are the defaults on every PharmGrowth pharmacy website, because the patients using them are the same patients who come to the counter. The design principles page explains why the sites look the way they do, and seven pharmacy website mistakes covers the errors that most often shut patients out.
Sources
- Equality Act 2010, s.20 and s.29 (legislation.gov.uk); Equality and Human Rights Commission guidance on websites and reasonable adjustments
- W3C — Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2
- The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (scope: public sector bodies)
- NHS digital service manual — accessibility guidance