Spacing – NHS digital service manual

Age – NHS digital service manual

Content guide – NHS digital service manual

Design principles – NHS digital service manual

Table – NHS digital service manual

Buttons – NHS digital service manual

Layout – NHS digital service manual

Getting started with accessibility - NHS digital service manual

Terms and conditions - NHS digital service manual

Icons – NHS digital service manual

Two adjacent links should not point to the same destination. You almost always want to combine the 
two links.

For example, it is quite common to link an image and text together like this:

```html
<a href="news.html">
    <img src="photo.jpg" alt="" />
</a>
<a href="news.html">
    News
</a>
``` 

These adjacent links should be combined like so:

```html
<a href="news.html">
    <img src="photo.jpg" alt="" />
    News
</a>
``` 

Links to `#` are ignored, as these are nearly always placeholders for JavaScript, e.g.:

```html
<a href="#" onclick="approve()">
    OK
</a>
<a href="#" onclick="reject()">
    Cancel
</a>
```

# Justification

Many users of assistive technology are only able to experience content sequentially - that is, they must
step through each part of the page, one part at a time. Often this is a slow process, potentially 
hampered by a physical impediment.

Stepping through redundant links is time consuming; for example users of a screen reader must 
hear each link read aloud in turn. 

This also simplifies your code. 

# Methodology

1. Find all links (`<a>` tags) on the page.
2. Ignore links pointing to `#`, as these are usually placeholders for JavaScript.
3. Flag links which are (a) separated only by whitespace and (b) which point to the 
   same absolute URL.  

# Learn more

Read about [Technique H2](https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H2) on how to combine
an adjacent image and texts links.

duplicate-adjacent-link

January 2026

December 2025

NHS Service Manual

Title / URL	Issues
Spacing – NHS digital service manualservice-manual.nhs.uk/design-system/styles/spacing	1
Age – NHS digital service manualservice-manual.nhs.uk/content/inclusive-content/age	1
Content guide – NHS digital service manualservice-manual.nhs.uk/content	1
Design principles – NHS digital service manualservice-manual.nhs.uk/design-system/design-principles	1
Table – NHS digital service manualservice-manual.nhs.uk/design-system/components/table	1
Buttons – NHS digital service manualservice-manual.nhs.uk/design-system/components/buttons	1
Layout – NHS digital service manualservice-manual.nhs.uk/design-system/styles/layout	1
Getting started with accessibility - NHS digital service manualservice-manual.nhs.uk/accessibility/getting-started	1
Terms and conditions - NHS digital service manualservice-manual.nhs.uk/terms-and-conditions	1
Icons – NHS digital service manualservice-manual.nhs.uk/design-system/styles/icons	1

Combine adjacent links with the same destination

NHS Service Manual

Where this issue has occurred