We want The Sick List to be useful to the people who need it. All of them.
If you’re ill, exhausted, overwhelmed, using a screen reader, zooming the page to 400%, navigating with a keyboard or trying to find one useful thing while your brain has frankly had enough for one day, this website shouldn’t make life harder.
Accessibility hasn’t been something we’ve bolted on at the end. We’ve tried to think about it while we’ve been building The Sick List — and when we’ve found something that gets in the way, we’ve fixed it.
We’re using WCAG 2.2 AA as our accessibility benchmark. We are not claiming that The Sick List has passed a full independent WCAG audit, because it hasn’t. What we can tell you is what we’ve actually done and tested.
What we’ve tried to make possible
We’ve designed The Sick List so people should be able to:
- make the page and text much bigger without losing important information
- increase text spacing without the layout falling apart
- use keyboard controls to move through key parts of the site
- use a screen reader to read the content and understand controls
- use Windows high-contrast settings without losing the things they actually need
- understand links, buttons, checkboxes and search controls without having to guess what they do
- use the site on a phone as well as a larger screen
- find information without wading through tiny text, enormous walls of copy or unnecessarily complicated menus
We also try very hard to write in ordinary human language. Being ill is quite enough work already.
What we’ve actually tested
Rather than just saying that accessibility matters to us, we’ve been testing the real site as we build it.
So far that has included:
- 200% and 400% browser zoom
- increased text spacing
- Windows 11 contrast themes
- reading a complete Sick List guide using Windows Narrator
- checking that hospital-bag checkboxes have understandable labels and announce their checked state
- checking search controls, product choices and buttons are named clearly
- sampled keyboard and focus behaviour
- sampled journeys on desktop and mobile
- fixing accessibility problems we found along the way, including contrast, text size, heading structure, input borders, interactive target sizes, focus behaviour and how our logo behaves in forced-colour modes
These are real sampled checks, not a certification. We haven’t tested every page with every combination of browser, device and assistive technology on earth.
That distinction matters to us. We’d rather tell you exactly what we’ve done than stick a shiny accessibility claim on the website and hope nobody looks too closely.
Things we still know about
The Sick List is a small patient-led project and there are limits to the testing we’ve been able to do.
At the moment:
- the whole website has not had an independent WCAG 2.2 AA audit
- we have not tested every browser, operating system, screen reader or assistive technology combination
- live operating-system reduced-motion behaviour still needs further checking
- in some Windows high-contrast settings, a non-essential piece of branding on a printable packing sheet can disappear; the actual information remains available
If we discover something else that isn’t working properly, we’ll add it here rather than quietly pretending it doesn’t exist.
A word about AI
We used AI to help us build The Sick List, and we’re not embarrassed about that. Quite the opposite.
We’re a small patient-led project without a giant web-development or accessibility team. AI gave us access to something we otherwise wouldn’t have had: help interpreting accessibility guidance, reviewing code, spotting potential problems, working through fixes and keeping track of what still needed testing.
But The Sick List itself comes from people.
The ideas, the patient experience, the stories, the humour, the recommendations and the judgement behind them are human. We decided what the site should say and how it should sound. We wrote, rewrote, argued over and approved the words. We decided what belonged, what didn’t, what felt useful and what felt wrong. AI helped us do some of the heavy lifting around building and checking the site, but it didn’t invent the experience behind it or replace the people whose experience shaped it.
And when something needed to be checked in the real world — zooming the site, turning on Windows contrast mode, using Narrator or working through a page — a human being actually did that too.
AI helped a tiny project do more accessibility work, not less.
We think that’s a pretty good use for it.
This bit will keep changing
Accessibility isn’t a job you finish once and tick off.
As The Sick List changes, we’ll keep checking it. If we find a better way of doing something, we’ll change it.
Statement prepared: 17 September 2026.
We plan to review this statement when there are significant changes to the site and at least once a year.