Services | Dorset County Hospital

Featured | Dorset County Hospital

Charitable Donations | Dorset County Hospital

Friends of DCH | Dorset County Hospital

Site Development | Dorset County Hospital

Latest News | Dorset County Hospital

Surveys | Dorset County Hospital

CQC | Dorset County Hospital

A-Z of Services | Dorset County Hospital

People using screen readers are not able to see the layout of a form. To make forms
accessible, they must define explicit text labels for each form control. 

Usually the best solution is to use a `<label>` element. The label may be linked to 
by the form control:

```html
<label for="name">Full name</label>
<input type="name" id="name">
```

or the `<label>` can be wrapped around the form control:

```html
<label>
    Full name <input type="name">
</label>
```

Buttons are different, as their labels are specified by the code for the button, e.g.

```html
<input type="submit" value="Send message">
<button>Send message</button>
```

Alternatively ARIA attributes, such as `aria-label` may be used, but this information
will not be conveyed to visual users. For more information, see [W3C's guide to labeling controls](https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/forms/labels/).

Hidden input fields (`<input type="hidden">`) do not require labels.
Note that the `placeholder` attribute 
[should not be used as an alternative to a label](https://www.w3.org/TR/html/sec-forms.html#the-placeholder-attribute),
nor should the `title` attribute.

## Custom roles

Note that this check considers the underlying accessible role of an element, which can be 
different from the tag itself.

For example, this `<div>` has a `role` of `button`, and so is expected to have a label, like
a button would.

```html
<div role="button"></div>
```

form-control-labels

February 2026

January 2026

Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust

Title / URL	Issues
Services \| Dorset County Hospitaldchft.nhs.uk/category/services/	9
Featured \| Dorset County Hospitaldchft.nhs.uk/category/featured/	9
Charitable Donations \| Dorset County Hospitaldchft.nhs.uk/category/charitable-donations/	9
Friends of DCH \| Dorset County Hospitaldchft.nhs.uk/category/friends-of-dch/	9
Site Development \| Dorset County Hospitaldchft.nhs.uk/category/site-development/	9
Latest News \| Dorset County Hospitaldchft.nhs.uk/category/latest-news/	9
Surveys \| Dorset County Hospitaldchft.nhs.uk/category/surveys/	9
CQC \| Dorset County Hospitaldchft.nhs.uk/category/cqc/	9
A-Z of Services \| Dorset County Hospitaldchft.nhs.uk/patients-and-visitors/a-z-of-services/p/	1
A-Z of Services \| Dorset County Hospitaldchft.nhs.uk/patients-and-visitors/a-z-of-services/o/	1

Ensure form controls have labels

Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust

Where this issue has occurred