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Strachan Veterinary Practice
Privacy Policy

We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

The policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who register for our services, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.

We may update this policy from time to time so please check our policy regularly to ensure that you’re happy with any changes.  By using our services you’re agreeing to be bound by this policy.

About us

Our surgery is part of Strachan Veterinary Group, registered in England and Wales under company number 04078601.  Our registered address is 36 Heaton Road, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE6 1SD.

Lawful basis for processing your data

Your personal information is used for a number of different reasons depending on what it is.  We only collect what is necessary in order to provide our service to you.

Your personal details, such as your name, date of birth, address, email address, phone number and insurance policy number

  • To identify who you are when you visit the practice so we can ensure it’s your pet, and our records are accurate.
    • As part of our contract with you
  • Send you appointment reminders so you know when to bring your pet in to see us
    • Our legitimate interests are to ensure your pet is, and remains in, good health and to optimise time efficiency in our practices by reducing missed appointments
  • Send you treatment, vaccination, flea or worming reminders to keep you informed about when your pet needs treatment
    • Our legitimate interest to ensure your pet is, and remains in good health
  • Communicate with your insurance provider if applicable so that any claims can be submitted efficiently
    • This is a legal requirement and part of our contract with you
  • Send you service updates such as changes to our T&Cs or practice disruptions to inform you of any changes to the service we provide
    • This is a legal requirement and part of our contract with you
  • Send you information about animal health concerns in your area to keep you informed on issues which may affect your pet
    • Our legitimate interest to ensure your pet is, and remains in good health
  • Send you information about our wider services, events and resources. We like to keep you up to date and help you get the best from our services (you can find out more in the section on marketing below)
    • Only with you consent, so the choice is yours
  • We sometimes ask for your feedback about our overall service. More often than not, they are anonymised but we may want to respond to you directly, if you’re unhappy with something.
    • Our legitimate interest to address your concerns and continue to improve our services for our customers and their pets.

Please note that, where we are required to process your personal information as part of our contract with you and you do not provide us with this information, we may not be able to provide our services to you. 

Your payment information

This is information provided when you are required to pay directly for any practice services.  We don’t store your card details.

  • Take payments for the service we provide and give refunds where necessary as some of our services require direct payment
    • As part of our contract with you
  • Keeping a record of financial transactions so we know what you’ve paid for
    • It’s a legal requirement

Your contact history with us

This covers things you’ve said, whether that be via email, telephone or the ‘Contact Us’ page on our website.

  • Provide customer service and support
    • It’s up to you whether you contact us via the methods above so it depends on the nature of your query. It could be part of our contract with you.
  • Improve our support services to ensure our customer service is the best it can be
    • Our legitimate interest to keep our team trained to the highest standard to provide the best possible service to your and your pets
  • Resolve complaints and disputes and claims
    • Our legitimate interest to resolve complaints and disputes in a timely manner and to exercise our legal rights

We may also anonymise and/or aggregate your personal information, so you aren’t identifiable.  This process may be used to facilitate the testing of our IT systems, research, data analysis, improving our site and developing new products and services.

How we obtain your data

There are several ways in which we obtain your information.  Most information is voluntary provided by yourself via completing our registration process or conversing with a member of staff during registration, placing orders, or signing up for our wellness plan.

Sharing your information

We do not, and will not, sell  or rent any of your personal data to any third party.

We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

However, we share your data with the following categories of companies as an essential part of being able to provide our services to you and your pets:

  • Other veterinary clinics such as referral practices, or our out of hours provider, so that they can arrange appointments, tests, treatments and services.
  • Other practices if you decide to move to a new practice, or seek a second opinion
  • Laboratories or pet crematoriums so that we can arrange tests, treatments and services and obtain results on your behalf
  • Your insurer, so that we can obtain permission to perform certain investigations and treatments at their expense. Also to arrange payment for investigations and treatments provided.
  • Banks and payment service providers, so that we can deal with payments and refunds where necessary
  • Debt collection agencies, should you fall behind with payments for the services we provide
  • Email providers, printers and mailing houses, so we can send you reminders, administrative information relating to the way we provide services to you, information about animal health issues relevant to you and marking communications if you agree
  • Law enforcement, government or other agencies should we receive a request from them to assist with any investigations, or if we deem it necessary
  • Charities, in the event that your pets find themselves with a charity for the facilitation of rehoming or other means, we may provide them with any necessary details for the continuation of animal welfare or other relevant matters
  • Third parties such as the police, RSPCA or other authorities where we are unable to reach you for consent and unlikely to be able to for some time, we may disclose necessary information to third parties for the facilitation of continuity of pet care
  • Third party software providers where we implement and you make use of our third party provided apps, your data will be shared to facilitate a more convenient, streamlined and more accessible process.

We take the sharing of your data very seriously and only do so where necessary for the purposes set out above.  Where your data is shared with third party software providers, we ensure that they have the appropriate data protections procedures, policies, and certificates in place before transferring any information.

Marketing messages

If you have said we may, we’ll send you marketing messages to keep you aware of what we’re up to and to help you see and find our products and services.

If you no longer wish to receive them then please speak to a member of staff.

If you’ve asked us to stop sending any kind of marketing, we will action the withdrawal of your consent as soon as possible, although we ask that you please be patient so that we can update all of our systems.  You may continue to receive messages from us whilst we process your request.

If you decide to opt out of marketing message, we will continue to send ‘service communications’ such as appointment/vaccination/treatment reminders.

 

Where your data is stored

As part of the services we offer to you, the information which you provide us with is stored within our practice management system, EzyVet.  Records will be available across our branches for the benefit of patient care and transferring records.

Your data may be transferred to counties outside of the UK and European Economic Area (EEA).  This may happen if any of our servers are located elsewhere.  If we transfer your information outside of the EEA in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this policy.  By submitted your personal data, you’re agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing.

How long we keep your information

We will keep you data for as long as we need to fulfil the purposes we have set out in this Privacy Notice.  If you cease to be our client, we will still need to keep some of your data to meet our legal and regulatory obligations, resolve disputes, prevent fraud and abuse, and to enforce our Terms and Conditions.  We will only keep what is necessary for these purposes.

You can contact us if you no longer wish to be a client and ask that we deactivate your account.  However, we will keep the data we need even after your account has been deactivated.

Your rights

You have a number of rights relating to your personal information, which are as follows:

  • The right to be informed about how your personal information is used, most of which is within this notice
  • The right to access personal information we hold about you
  • The right to rectify personal information we hold about you if it is inaccurate or incomplete
  • The right to request that we delete your data, stop processing it or collecting it in some circumstances
  • The right to stop marketing messages, further information of which is above in the ‘Marketing messages’ section
  • The right to object to the processing of your personal information for the furtherance of our legitimate interests
  • The right to portability where we would port or transfer elements of your personal information to you or another practice.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, or have any questions, please contact the practice directly.

Changes to this notice

We will keep this notice under regular review and publish any updates in practice or on our website,  Any significant changes will be communicated with your directly, so you are kept up to date on how your data is handled.

 This policy was last reviewed in February 2023