National investigations

Partnerships

Support for NHS staff

How we improve safety

Accessibility statement

Maternity investigations

Patient and public involvement

About HSIB

invented-url-for-404-page

Can we look into your concern?

When selecting a user interface component with the keyboard, the focus indicator must 
not be completely obscured by anything in front of it.

## Why this matters

When using a keyboard, it is important that the user can see where they are on the page.
If the focus indicator is obscured, the user may not know where they are, and may not
be able to interact with the page.

## Examples

Most common examples include:

* Banners at the top or bottom of the page, such as cookie banners
* Fixed navigation bars
* Fixed footers
* Popup modals, such as cookie consent modals

## How to fix

With elements that cover part of the screen, such as cookie banners, ensure
that the user can scroll to see any content behind the banner, without having to close
the banner.

With popup modals, it should usually be impossible to focus anything behind the modal.
Most common modal frameworks will automatically trap focus within the modal, so that
this is impossible. Example: [Bootstrap Modal](https://getbootstrap.com/docs/5.2/components/modal/#live-demo).

## Further reading

This is part of the draft WCAG 2.2 specification and is subject to change.

* [WCAG 2.4.12](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/focus-not-obscured.html)

ensure-focus-is-not-obscured-minimum

June 2025

May 2025

Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch

Title / URL	Issues
National investigationswww.hsib.org.uk/what-we-do/national-investigations/	4
Partnershipswww.hsib.org.uk/who-we-are/partnerships/	2
Support for NHS staffwww.hsib.org.uk/help-and-support/support-for-nhs-staff/	1
How we improve safetywww.hsib.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-improve-safety/	1
Accessibility statementwww.hsib.org.uk/accessibility-statement/	1
Maternity investigationswww.hsib.org.uk/what-we-do/maternity-investigations/	1
Patient and public involvementwww.hsib.org.uk/who-we-are/patient-and-public-involvement/	1
About HSIBwww.hsib.org.uk/who-we-are/about-hsib/	1
invented-url-for-404-pagewww.hsib.org.uk/invented-url-for-404-page/	1
Can we look into your concern?www.hsib.org.uk/what-we-do/can-we-look-into-your-concern/	1

Ensure focus is not fully obscured

Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch

Where this issue has occurred