PRIVACY POLICY

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Salt House Veterinary Centre Ltd (“Salt House Veterinary Centre” or “the Practice”) is committed to protecting your privacy. We only collect personal data that helps us achieve the purpose set out in this Privacy Policy and this data will only be used in accordance with this policy. We will not collect any additional data beyond the data listed below without notifying you first.

Salt House Veterinary Centre may change this Privacy Policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. The effective date of the policy is 1 January 2022.

This Privacy Policy applies in addition to the Terms and Conditions of being a customer of Salt House Veterinary Centre.

Legal bases for processing your personal data

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (“UK GDPR”), and except for Special Category data (see below), the lawful basis Salt House Veterinary Centre relies on to process your personal data is the legitimate interests of the Practice.

As the processing of your personal data is necessary to comply with the legal and regulatory requirements of providing veterinary services to you and your pet(s), and for the performance of our contract with you, we consider this to be a legitimate interest of the Practice (under Article 6 of UK GDPR).

If we identify a need to process any additional Special Category personal data (as defined by UK GDPR) to assist us with the provision of our services to you, for example in relation to a medical condition or disability you may have, we will obtain your explicit consent prior to processing your Special Category data. This consent can be withdrawn at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer at the contact details below.

By using our website, registering with us, and/or by using our veterinary services you understand and agree that personal information you provide to us will be held on our Practice Management System, Provet Cloud, together with secure email and data storage solutions provided by Microsoft and other reputable software and data storage providers.

What personal data we collect and how we use this

We may collect the following information when you register your pet with the Practice via telephone, email, web-form, SMS or in person. You will be asked to provide some essential information; including your first name, surname, postal address, email address, telephone numbers and, if applicable, payment information and insurance policy details.

These details are collected in a non-automated manner to help us:

• Record your details as a new client on our systems, or update your details if they change, in accordance with regulatory requirements when you register with the Practice;
• Record any other relevant details about you which may assist us with the provision of our services to you;
• Record your pet(s) details on our systems;
• Subscribe you and your pet to our Friends and Family health plans;
• Make appointments and provide confirmations and reminders about these;
• Contact you to advise when your pet(s) need treatments in the best interests of their health, for example parasite treatment reminders;
• Process the fees due for any treatment;
• Contact you about your pet(s) or your account, including any outstanding balances, when required;
• Ask you to complete client satisfaction surveys from time to time; and
• Keep you updated with any changes to our services.

We may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes relating specifically to the Practice with the sole aim of improving our services to clients and their pets. Your data will not be used for any other market research purposes.

We may contact you by telephone, SMS, electronic messaging (e.g. WhatsApp), email or hardcopy mail.

Third parties we sometimes need to share your personal data with

At times it may be necessary for Salt House Veterinary Centre to share your personal data with third parties as part of delivering veterinary services to you and your pet(s). Where personal data is shared with third parties, this is done securely and only to the extent necessary for the third party to facilitate the Practice in delivering veterinary services to you, or otherwise to fulfil our legal or regulatory obligations.

These third parties are: 

• Other veterinary practices or animal care organisations who we have referred you and your pet to, or have referred your pet to us;
• Other veterinary practices which may be providing veterinary services to you and your pet(s) on a temporary or on-going basis and you have given us permission to share your pet(s) clinical history with them;
• Other practices / veterinary organisations providing out-of-hours and supplementary veterinary services to our clients, including VidiVet Limited and MiNightVet (part of CVS (UK) Limited);
• Insurance companies you have, or have had, a policy with and require client details and your pet’s medical records from us to process an insurance claim;
• External laboratories, including IDEXX Laboratories Limited;
• Pet cremation service providers, including Pet Cremation Services, a division of Time Right Limited;
• The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS);
• The Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD);
• The Veterinary Defence Society (VDS);
• Charities and other welfare organisations who are or may be contributing to the cost of your veterinary treatment, including Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, Cats Protection, Dogs Trust, Blue Cross and the RSPCA.
• Providers of financial services to the Practice and its client, including payment card systems (specifically Nordhealth Pay and Adyen) and credit finance solutions (including CarefreeCredit Ltd and Zopa Ltd t/a DivideBuy);
• Entities assisting us with the collection of any unpaid debt;
• Relevant government agencies including Public Health England and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA).

Keeping your personal data secure

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. To prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the personal information we collect.

We use appropriate and up-to-date IT security software and store your data in secure cloud-based environments provided by reputable software providers.

All data is only accessible to our directors, employees and contractors working for us specifically to provide veterinary treatment (i.e. locums). Our directors, employees and contractors/locums are bound by strict confidentiality agreements and a breach of this agreement would be considered as serious misconduct.

We endeavour to keep your data up-to-date and accurate. Please help us to do this by contacting us if there are any changes.

While we take all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal data is secure, there always remains the risk of harm. The internet as a whole can be insecure at times and therefore we are unable to guarantee the security of personal data beyond what is reasonably practical. We have appropriate Cyber Security insurance in place to help us deal promptly and effectively with any incidents should they occur.

We would inform you within 72 hours if any breach of security occurs that might compromise your personal data.

We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties except in the following circumstances:

• We have your express permission to do so; or
• We are required by law to do so; or
• It is required for any legal proceeding, or to prove or protect our legal rights.

Cookie Policy

A cookie is a small file, stored on a user's hard drive by a website. Its purpose is to collect data relating to the user's browsing habits. You can choose to be notified each time a cookie is transmitted. You can also choose to disable cookies entirely in your internet browser, but this may decrease the quality of your user experience.

We use the following types of cookies on our website:

• Functional cookies - these are used to remember the selections you make on our website so that your selections are saved for your next visits.
• Google Analytics Cookies - our website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. Google Analytics uses cookies to help the website analyse how users use the site. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

If you follow links from our website to another third-party website, please note that we are not responsible for, and have no control over, their privacy policies and practices, including their cookie policies. These can be found in the relevant third party’s own privacy policy.

CCTV

CCTV is in operation at our business premises to provide security to our customers, staff, other visitors, and business assets. Images are recorded and stored securely and retained in line with the retention policy below. Images can only be viewed by the directors and employees of Salt House Veterinary Centre and, where a person can be identified, will only be provided to third parties if required by law or to protect or prove our legal rights.

How long we retain your personal data

We will retain your personal information only for as long as necessary, whilst complying with legal requirements for maintaining veterinary and financial records.

Customer data where relevant to veterinary treatment and financial transactions will be stored for six years, as required by the relevant governing bodies, including the RCVS, VMD and HMRC.

Other customer data not linked to veterinary treatment or financial records, and which is no longer needed to provide our services to you will be stored for no more than 12 months.

Any data no longer required will be deleted or destroyed securely and confidentially.

Your legal rights under UK GDPR

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

• Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information;
• Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete;
• Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances;
• Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances;
• Your right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances; and
• Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you have a request relating to these rights, please contact our Privacy Officer via the contact details below.

Our contact details

If you have any queries, concerns, requests or complaints relating to this policy or how we use your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer, Tim Moran:
 

In writing: 374 High Street, Winsford, CW7 2DP
By email: accounts@salthousevets.co.uk
By telephone: 01606 516627
Via the Contact Us form on the homepage of this website: https://salthousevets.co.uk

The Information Commissioner’s Office

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with how we have used your data. The ICO’s contact details are: 

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk

Policy Effective date: 1 January 2022
Last reviewed: 22 December 2023
ICO Registration No.: ZB320410