01525 237444

Privacy Policy

Data Controller: Heath and Reach Veterinary Surgery, Kingswood Farm, Brickhill Road, Heath and Reach, Bedfordshire, LU7 0BA

Data Protection Contact: The Practice Manager — jennifer.pettengell@heathandreachvets.co.uk

Heath and Reach Veterinary Surgery is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website and our premises, 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 this page periodically to ensure that you’re happy with any changes.

If you have any questions about our privacy policy please contact us by email to reception@heathandreachvets.co.uk or alternatively, you can telephone 01525 237444.

Lawful Basis for Processing Your Data

Organisations are permitted to process data if they have a legal basis for doing so. Heath and Reach Veterinary Surgery processes data on the basis that:

As your chosen veterinary surgery, we have a legitimate interest in processing your data. Which includes some or all the following:

  • To enable us to provide our veterinary services to clients
  • Where the processing enables us to enhance and personalise our services and communication for the benefit of our clients
  • To provide communications including postal, which we think will be of interest to you
  • To better understand how people interact with our websites
  • To manage payments, fees and charges
  • To administer and protect our business and our site (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)

and/or

With your consent:

  • To communicate our offers and promotions

and/or

It is necessary in relation to a contract or agreement which you have entered into. Which may include:

  • Joining a healthcare plan
  • Taking out a finance agreement
  • Collection and recovery of money owed to us

Information We Collect About You

We obtain information about you when you use our website, for example, when you contact us about registering your pet, booking online, signing up for a voucher, find out more about products and services, or if you register to receive our newsletter.

The Type of Information We Collect

The personal information we collect might include your name, address, email address, IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed and when.

CCTV and Audio Recording

This practice uses CCTV and audio recording systems on our premises for the following purposes:

  • The safety and welfare of pets, clients and staff
  • Security of the premises and prevention of crime
  • Staff training and the improvement of clinical and customer care

Recordings are accessible only to authorised practice staff and management. CCTV footage is retained for a maximum of 30 days unless it is required for an ongoing investigation or legal matter. Appropriate signage is displayed on the premises to inform visitors that recording is in operation.

Cookies

Our website is a static site and does not use analytics or tracking cookies. If you use our online booking system (provided by Vetstoria), their service may set cookies necessary for the booking process to function — please refer to Vetstoria’s own privacy policy for details. You can manage cookies at any time through your browser settings.

How Do We Use Your Information?

We may use your information to:

  • Process orders that you have submitted
  • Contact you about your pet’s treatment
  • Contact you about promotions or offers
  • Carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered between you and us, including sending you bills and statements of account
  • Seek your views or comments on the services we provide
  • Notify you of changes to our services
  • Send you communications, which you have requested, and that may be of interest
  • Process a CV application
  • Carry out analysis, improve the quality of our services and ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer
  • Training and security purposes

How Long Do We Store Your Data

We review our data retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity (i.e. for as long as you are a client plus 7 years, or immediately if you request to be deleted), or for as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Where We Store Your Personal Data

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

Your data may be transferred to countries outside the United Kingdom. This may happen if any of our service providers are located in a country outside of the UK. Where we transfer your information outside of the UK, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place as required by UK GDPR Article 46, such as standard contractual clauses or transfers to countries with a UK adequacy decision, to ensure that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.

Disclosure of Your Information

We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.

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

We may pass your information to our third-party service providers for the purposes of providing services to you (for example to send you appointment reminders). However, when we use third-party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes.

We will not release your information to third parties unless you have requested us to do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime. We may also pass your information to our debt recovery service provider, should this be necessary to recover monies owed to us.

We may be required to share your personal data with your animal insurance company. We may also need to share your personal data with a veterinary referral centre or specialist should we need to refer your animal to them.

We use Vetstoria to provide online appointment booking. When you book online, Vetstoria processes your personal data on our behalf as a data processor. We have a data processing agreement in place with Vetstoria to ensure your data is handled securely and in accordance with UK data protection law.

Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.

If you linked to our website from a third-party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy practices of the operators of that third-party site and recommend that you check their policy.

Your Rights

Under UK data protection law, you have the following rights:

  • Right of access — You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you. We will provide this within one month of your request.
  • Right to rectification — If any of the information we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete, you have the right to have it corrected. Please let us know if your contact details or other information changes.
  • Right to erasure — You have the right to request that we delete your personal data where there is no compelling reason for us to continue holding it. Please note that we may need to retain certain records to fulfil our legal and regulatory obligations.
  • Right to restrict processing — You have the right to ask us to limit the way we use your data in certain circumstances, for example if you contest its accuracy or object to our processing.
  • Right to data portability — You have the right to request that we transfer your data to another veterinary surgery or organisation. We will only do so with your consent.
  • Right to object — You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data where we are relying on legitimate interest as our lawful basis. We will stop processing your data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds.
  • Right to withdraw consent — Where we rely on your consent to process your data (e.g. marketing communications), you can withdraw that consent at any time.
  • Rights related to automated decision-making — You have the right not to be subject to decisions based solely on automated processing that significantly affect you. We do not currently use automated decision-making.

We will only send you direct marketing communications by email, phone or text message about new products and services if you have consented to receive them. You can change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us by email: reception@heathandreachvets.co.uk or telephone on 01525 237444 or in person.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact the Practice Manager or email reception@heathandreachvets.co.uk.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO):

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

This Policy was last updated in February 2026.