# UK Healthcare Website Accessibility 2026. A Study of 300 Websites Against WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 AA

Source: https://prioritypixels.co.uk/insights/uk-healthcare-accessibility-2026/

UK healthcare website accessibility

## Executive Summary


This report presents the findings of an automated accessibility audit of 300 UK healthcare websites conducted by [Priority Pixels](https://prioritypixels.co.uk/) in May 2026. The audit was designed to compare the results returned by [Google PageSpeed Insights](https://pagespeed.web.dev/), the accessibility scoring tool most commonly cited in statutory accessibility statements published by UK healthcare providers, against the results returned by a direct [axe-core scan](https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core) of the same sites against the full [WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 A and AA rulesets](https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/). The two scans returned substantially different findings on the same sample. The gap between them is the primary subject of this report.

Each of the 300 sites in the sample was scanned twice on the same date. The first scan was a standard PageSpeed Insights audit, which is built on Google's [Lighthouse engine](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/overview) and returns a single 0 to 100 accessibility score for each page based on a curated subset of the axe-core ruleset. The second scan was a direct axe-core scan against the full WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2 A and AA rulesets and the axe-core best-practice rules. The axe-core engine is the open-source rule engine on which the Lighthouse subset is based and which underpins most commercial accessibility tooling.

The PageSpeed Insights scan returned a mean mobile accessibility score of 89 out of 100 across the 300 sites. 62 per cent of sites scored 90 or above, the threshold Google designates as a passing automated score. This is the figure most NHS trusts and private healthcare providers cite in their statutory accessibility statements when reporting on the accessibility position of their websites.


93.7%

Of homepages contained at least one WCAG violation

71.7%

Of homepages contained at least one critical or serious failure

26.7%

Of homepages contained at least one critical-impact failure

The PageSpeed Insights score is not a measure of WCAG conformance. It is a measure of performance against the curated subset of rules included in the Lighthouse engine. The direct axe-core scan, which evaluates each page against the complete WCAG ruleset, returned the following findings on the same 300-site sample.

- 93.7 per cent of homepages contained at least one WCAG violation. 19 of the 300 sites returned a homepage with zero violations.
- 71.7 per cent of homepages contained at least one failure classified by axe-core as critical or serious. Failures at these severity levels prevent users from accessing content or from completing the primary action the page supports, such as locating a clinic, reading patient information or booking an appointment.
- 26.7 per cent of homepages contained at least one critical-impact failure. The failures recorded most often at this severity level were images without alternative text, buttons without an accessible name, form fields without an associated label and viewport tags that prevent the user from zooming the page.
- The median homepage contained 13 broken elements. The single highest broken-element count recorded across the sample was 2,925 on one homepage.
- Private dental practices recorded higher violation counts than [NHS Trusts](https://prioritypixels.co.uk/nhs-marketing-agency/) on every measure captured by the audit. Dental practice homepages averaged 70.9 broken elements per page against 13.3 for NHS Trust homepages. 93.6 per cent of dental practice homepages contained a critical or serious failure against 58.2 per cent of NHS Trust homepages.
- Pages used to access care recorded higher violation counts than the homepages of the same sites. Booking and appointment pages averaged 7.2 distinct violations per page against 4.5 on homepages. Contact pages averaged 50.6 broken elements per page against 32.4 on homepages.


All findings reported in this study derive from automated tooling. Research published by [WebAIM](https://webaim.org/projects/million/) indicates that automated accessibility tools detect approximately 30 per cent of the issues that a manual WCAG audit conducted by a trained auditor would identify on the same site. The figures reported here therefore describe a lower bound on the accessibility position of the sample and of the sector. A full WCAG conformance assessment would record a higher number of violations on every site tested.

UK healthcare websites are subject to three principal legal frameworks on accessibility. NHS Trusts and other public sector providers must meet WCAG 2.2 AA under the [Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/952/contents/made). Private providers are required to make reasonable adjustments for disabled users under the [Equality Act 2010](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents). UK organisations supplying services into the European Union are additionally subject to the [European Accessibility Act](https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202), in force since 28 June 2025. The findings presented in this report indicate that the level of conformance currently achieved across the sector falls short of the requirements set by these frameworks.