Privacy Policy

The below outlines how The Lowestoft Vet collects, utilises, and processes your personal data when you register as a client, purchase our various services or products, and interact with our website. We take your privacy and data protection very seriously. If you have any questions about this policy, please contact us at info@thelowestoftvet.co.uk.

Your personal data – how we collect and process

The below details four key ways we process your personal data. We are committed to ensuring it is kept accurate and up to date and will not retain it for longer than necessary.

1.    Administration of your account

So that we can provide the best possible service and care for your pet, it is important that we collect and process essential personal data when you register as a client, including your name, address, contact details and details of your pet.

This personal data will be used for essential services and administrative tasks, such as:

  • Providing products and services as required, including invoicing, rescheduling appointments, communicating important updates on your pet and keeping records for legal and accounting purposes.

  • Keeping you updated on key information about the practice, for example, changes to seasonal opening hours and out of hours availability.

  • Processing insurance claims on your behalf, including sharing your pet’s medical history, along with your contact details, with your insurance company.

  • Processing laboratory requests. For example, if we need to send a sample taken from your pet to our supplier, we will need to provide your name and address for identification purposes, ensuring results are linked to your pet.

  • Enabling a subscription to our healthcare plan, if you wish to do this. In order to set up the necessary direct debit, you will need to provide your bank account details and confirm your contact details. We will also confirm your pet details and subscription plan. Please be assured that we do not retain your bank account information once your direct debit is confirmed.

2.    To communicate healthcare information

We may send communications regarding your pets wellbeing, such as:

  • Vaccination reminders and administering health care treatments.

  • Targeted healthcare advice.

  • Details of the latest products or services that might be relevant to your pet.

These are designed to be useful to enable to the best care for your pet. The personal data processed for these communications are name(s), email address(es) and contact number(s). They will only be sent to existing clients and can be opted out of at any time by letting a team member know in person, or by emailing us at info@thelowestoftvet.co.uk and requesting to be removed from the communications list.

3.    ​Sharing with veterinary related third parties

On occasion we may need to share your personal data with a third party, for example:  

  • Referral to a specialist veterinary surgeon.  We will need to share your pets’ clinical records with them and your name and address to confirm your referral appointment.

  • Moving to an alternative veterinary surgery.  We will need to share your pets’ clinical records and your contact details such as your name and address with your new vets before we close your account.

  • Microchipping your pet. Microchipping cats and dogs is a legal requirement, in the event of a legal obligation to do so, we will share your personal data as needed. In order to complete microchip registrations on your behalf, we will use your name and contact details as part of the registration and therefore these details will be shared with the chip provider.

At The Lowestoft Vet, the privacy and security of your personal data are of utmost importance to us. We assure you that your information will not be shared with any third parties without your consent, except where required by law. Furthermore, we do not disclose any personal data to suppliers of the medicines we administer, or the pet care products we sell.

4.    When you visit our website www.thelowestoftvet.co.uk

We use a third-party service (Google Analytics) on www.thelowestoftvet.co.uk. Google Analytics will gather standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to understand the areas of the website being used the most, and areas for potential improvement. This information is processed in a way which does not identify anyone.

We use cookies, which are small text files that are placed on your computer when you visit. We do this to make our website work more efficiently and to promote our news, products and services on social media.

The Lowestoft Vet uses a third party service to help maintain the security and performance of our website. To do this it processes the IP addresses of visitors to The Lowestoft Vet website.

On our website we obtain users personal information via contact forms to help with specific tasks. Each form only requests the details required and explains what the form is needed for. Once the enquiry has been dealt with, the data will be deleted.

 

Provision of your personal data to our service providers

If needed, we may pass on your personal data to one of our contracted service providers to help as part of our service with you.  They will only use this data to fulfil their service on our behalf and are contracted to keep your details secure. Once the service has been fulfilled, they will dispose of this date in accordance with the procedures outlined by The Lowestoft Vet.

 

How long is your data processed for?

We are (by law) required to retain information such as information needed for income tax and audit purposes.

In accordance with our professional liability insurance, we need to keep and securely store past clients records for seven years. This includes full name, address, email address and telephone number, but does not include bank account details.

It's important to note that we will only process your personal data whilst you are a client. If there has been no activity on the account for 2 years, we will contact clients to see if they wish to remain as a client. After two years and six months, we will write to or call clients again. After three years of inactivity and no response to our enquiries we will close the client’s account and archive the data. 

 

Your rights

You have a number of rights regarding your personal information, which are outlined below:

  1. The right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. You can do this by emailing info@thelowestoftvet.co.uk . Please note that you will need to provide proof of identity (a current passport or driving licence), before we can provide any details around the information we hold about you.

  2. The right to correct any personal information we hold about you if it is inaccurate or incomplete.

  3. The right to request that we delete your data from our records, that we stop processing it or collecting it.

  4. You have the right to object to certain types of processing such as direct marketing and automated processing such as profiling.

  5. Right of portability – you have the right to have the data we hold about you transferred to another practice.

 

Concerns

If for any reason you are concerned about how we are using your personal information, please let us know by emailing info@thelowestoftvet.co.uk and we will work with you to help resolve your concern. If you remain dissatisfied with how your personal data is being processed and your concern is unresolved, you can also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at www.ico.org.uk