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BMJ Best Practice: Accessibility

This accessibility statement applies to content published by BMJ Best Practice and accessed via the website bestpractice.bmj.com. This statement does not currently cover the BMJ Best Practice mobile app.

As part of BMJ’s vision of a healthier world, we want to make evidence-based resources available to as many people as possible.  Each year we support more than 50 million users from over 150 countries to access our websites and products. 

A key part of achieving our vision is to ensure our content is accessible to everyone, both through innovative technical solutions and through jargon-free, practical and customisable evidence-based content.

Our accessibility objective

The BMJ Best Practice website and mobile app have been designed, built and run by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (‘BMJ’). Our objective is to promote equality of access to users and we do this by endeavouring to be compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG version 2.2) Levels A or AA, wherever viable. 

How accessible is the BMJ Best Practice website currently?

We are always working to improve the accessibility of BMJ Best Practice.   You should be able to: 

  • clearly read all text 
  • zoom in up to 300% without problems
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • use most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

However, we know that we still have some areas which could be improved.   In particular, the following areas have been identified  as requiring further work:

Some content and functionality available on BMJ Best Practice which has been provided by third-parties:

  • may not support screen-reader users or users of keyboard-only or voice command navigation
  • may not support focus highlighting features; and
  • may include links which are hidden or which may not act as expected.

The affected areas include:

  • the calculators; and
  • the ‘My Account’ page.

Users may have difficulty understanding BMJ’s accessibility features as no guidance or instructions are available.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

At this time we are not planning to fix the issues identified with content and/or functionality which has been supplied by a third party.  These include the calculators, and the ‘My Account’ page, which have both been built and are hosted through third party software.  Even though these elements have been ‘skinned’ to look like BMJ’s website, they are not controlled or maintained by BMJ.  

Whilst we would ideally like to fix these issues, we’ve assessed the current cost of doing so to be disproportionate to the overall benefit which would be achieved. However, we will continue to periodically reassess this position.

Monitoring how we’re doing

We continue to regularly test the BMJ Best Practice website both internally and externally to ensure that the website (and any new features which we may introduce from time to time) meet our accessibility and compliance objectives. 

The BMJ Best Practice website was last tested by an independent auditor on 30 April 2024 by DAC (Digital Accessibility Centre).  You can read the full accessibility test (VPAT) report here. We plan to conduct another similar audit annually to ensure that our progress remains on track.

The BMJ Best Practice mobile app

We know that the BMJ Best Practice mobile app is not currently fully accessible.  We are reviewing existing standards and aim to publish details of the areas where we think there is scope for improvement in the future.  

What to do if you cannot access parts of the BMJ Best Practice website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of the BMJ Best Practice website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think here’s more that we could be doing to make the accessibility of BMJ Best Practice better, please contact:

  • email support@bmj.com
  • call +44 (0) 207 111 1105; or
  • write to BMJ Publishing Group Limited, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JP

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 5 December 2024.

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