1. General

Birchwood Veterinary Practice (“we”, “us”, “our”) is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We are the data controller responsible for your personal data and we process it in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018, and any other applicable data protection laws (together, “data protection law”).

We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Please read this policy carefully to understand how we handle your personal data. It applies to information we collect about:

  • visitors to our website
  • clients
  • suppliers

2. Visitors to our website

We may collect and process personal data about you when you:

  • complete an online contact or booking form, providing details such as your name, address, email address and telephone number
  • report a problem, make a complaint, make an enquiry, or contact us for any other reason (we may keep a record of that correspondence)
  • otherwise provide information to us, or we collect it from you, through our website

IP address

We may collect information about your device, including your Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type and operating system, for system administration, security and fraud prevention. This is statistical data about browsing actions and patterns and does not, by itself, identify any individual.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users, to help us provide you with a good experience, and to improve the site. Non-essential cookies (such as analytics) are only set where you have given your consent through our cookie banner. For detailed information on the cookies we use, see the Cookie Policy at the end of this document.

We use your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interests, or your consent where required, in order to:

  • provide you with the information or services you requested
  • respond to an enquiry submitted through one of our online forms
  • allow you to use interactive features of our site
  • present our site content effectively for you and your device
  • improve our site and services
  • deal with any complaints or enquiries
  • send you marketing where you have agreed to receive it (see section 5)

Website links

Our site may contain links to and from third-party websites. If you follow a link to any such website, please note that it will have its own privacy practices, and we do not accept responsibility or liability for those policies. Please check them before submitting any personal data.

3. Clients

We collect details such as your name, address, contact numbers and email address in order to provide veterinary services to you and your animals, and to manage our relationship with you, including marketing our own products and services by post and email where permitted.

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, we may share your personal data with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) to assist with an investigation or complaint, and with other authorities where required by law.

We share your personal data with MWI Animal Health for the purpose of providing the Birchwood Veterinary Practice appointment booking portal. This includes your name, address, telephone number and email address.

We retain client personal data for as long as you are registered with our practice, and afterwards for any period we are required to keep records to meet our legal, regulatory and clinical obligations.

4. Suppliers

We collect details such as contact names, addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers in order to contact you about goods and services we have ordered, to meet our contractual obligations, and to place further orders. We may share this data with our staff to manage our relationship with you. We keep supplier personal data for as long as we need your goods or services, and for up to six years from the date of our last contact with you.

5. Marketing

We may use client personal data to send you information about our goods, services and events that we think may interest you, where you have agreed to receive it or where we are otherwise permitted to do so by law.

You have the right to opt out of marketing at any time. To do so you can:

  • click the unsubscribe link in any marketing communication; or
  • email us at care@birchwoodvet.co.uk or call 01759 373611 with your name and contact details.

Where you have subscribed to marketing, we keep your data for as long as you remain a client and have not unsubscribed.

6. Legal basis for processing your personal data

We process your personal data on one or more of the following lawful bases:

  • performance of a contract we have entered into with you
  • compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation
  • our legitimate interests, as described in this policy, provided these are not overridden by your rights
  • your consent, where we have asked for and obtained it

7. Disclosure of your data to third parties

In addition to the third parties already mentioned, we may disclose your personal data to:

  • our staff, in order to provide services to you
  • IT and software providers that host our website or store data on our behalf
  • professional advisers such as accountants and legal advisers
  • a prospective buyer of some or all of our business or assets, in which case your data may be among the transferred assets

We may also disclose your personal data to the police, regulatory bodies, legal advisers or similar third parties where we are under a legal duty to do so, or to enforce our agreements, or to protect the rights, property or safety of our clients, our practice or others.

We will not sell your personal data, and we will not share it with other organisations for their own marketing without your consent.

8. International transfers

We store and process your personal data within the United Kingdom wherever possible. Where any personal data is transferred outside the UK (for example, where a supplier or IT provider stores data abroad), we will ensure appropriate safeguards are in place so that the transfer complies with data protection law.

9. Data security

We have put in place appropriate physical, technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against accidental loss and unauthorised access, use, alteration or disclosure. We limit access to your personal data to those staff, contractors and third parties who have a legitimate need for it.

Where you have a password that gives you access to certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping it confidential. Please do not share it with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information over the internet is never completely secure. While we do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to our site, and any transmission is at your own risk.

10. Your rights

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please tell us if it changes.

Under data protection law you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. You may ask us to:

  • provide access to the personal data we hold about you
  • correct any inaccurate or incomplete data
  • erase your personal data where there is no longer a good reason for us to hold it
  • restrict our processing of your data
  • transfer your data to another provider (data portability), where applicable
  • object to our processing of your data in certain circumstances

Where our processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time. This does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before you withdrew it.

We may ask you for specific information to confirm your identity before acting on a request. In some cases the law allows or requires us to refuse a request, in which case we will explain why. Requests are normally free of charge, although we may charge a reasonable fee, or refuse to act, where a request is clearly unfounded or excessive.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at care@birchwoodvet.co.uk, stating your name and what you would like us to do.

11. Complaints

If you have any questions or concerns about how we handle your personal data, please contact us first at care@birchwoodvet.co.uk so we can try to resolve them.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection, at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time, and any changes will be posted on this page. Where changes materially affect how we collect, store or process your personal data, we will take reasonable steps to notify you. Please check this page periodically for updates.

13. Contact us

If you have any questions, comments or requests regarding this policy or how we use your personal data, please contact us:

Birchwood Veterinary Practice Main Street, Gate Helmsley, York YO41 1NF Email: care@birchwoodvet.co.uk Telephone: 01759 373611

Cookie Policy

Our website uses cookies to help it function and to help us understand how visitors use it. Essential cookies are needed for the site to work. Non-essential cookies, including analytics, are only set where you have given consent through our cookie banner, and you can change your choice at any time.

Analytics

This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google. Google Analytics uses cookies to help us understand how visitors use the site, such as which pages are viewed and how people arrive. The information collected is used to compile reports that help us improve the site.

Google may transfer this information to third parties where required by law, or where those third parties process it on Google’s behalf. You can find out how Google uses data at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

You can refuse or withdraw consent to non-essential cookies through our cookie banner, or by adjusting your browser settings. Please note that disabling some cookies may affect how the site works.

 

 

Last updated: August 2026