Terms & Conditions
Privacy
We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal information. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal information and how to contact us or the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the event you have a complaint.
We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are subject to the General Data Protection Regulation, which applies across the European Union (including in the UK) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.
Please note that we also have a data protection privacy notice for patients that can be viewed on our website or is available from reception upon request.
About us
When we say “we” or “us” in this privacy policy, we mean Lynwood Healthcare Ltd.
You can contact us at:
Lynwood Healthcare Ltd,
Unit 10 Samson Close,
Killingworth, NE12 QQ;
hello@lynwood.dental
0191 6038008
Personal information we collect about you
We may collect and use the following personal information about you:
your full name
your email address
your phone number
your postcode
information about your appointment with us, including what dental services you have requested
limited information about your health (such as previous dental work) in connection with your appointment
information about how you use our website
information about the device and programmes you are using to use our website such as your browser and operating system
This personal information is required to provide services to you. If you do not provide personal information we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing services to you.
How your personal information is collected
We collect personal information directly from you, whether via our website or when contacting you about your appointment.
We may also collect personal information from cookies on our website (more information is set out in section 10 below) and from our IT systems (such as appointment logs, automated monitoring of our websites, instant messaging systems).
How and why we use your personal information
Under data protection law, we can only use your personal information if we have a proper reason for doing so, e.g.: for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract (such as arranging your first appointment);
to comply with our legal and/or regulatory obligations;
for our legitimate interests or those of a third party; or
where you have given consent.
A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.
If you are interested in booking an appointment with us, we will need to collect personal information from you in order to take steps necessary to process you appointment and to provide you with the services you have requested from us.
The technical information gathered from the use of our website (including through our use of cookies) which may include personal data, is used for our legitimate interest of ensuring that our website is functioning properly and to help us make business decisions about the information to be provided on our website.
Marketing Communications
We may use your personal information to send you updates by email, text message, telephone or post about our services, events, news and promotions. We may send marketing communications to you as an existing customer about similar products we think you may be interested in, however we will always give you the opportunity to opt-out or unsubscribe from these communications if you wish.
We will always treat your personal information with the utmost respect and never share it with other organisations for marketing purposes. You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by using the “unsubscribe” link in emails or contacting us at the details above.
We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.
Who we share your personal information with
We routinely share personal information with:
third parties we use to help deliver our services, e.g. IT and digital service providers, such as our supplier who hosts this website and data collected from it on our behalf and helps us co-ordinate and send marketing communications;
our professional services advisers (such as lawyers, accountants and auditors)
Google Analytics: we work with Google Analytics to automatically collect information including: IP address; MAC (Media Access Control) address; unique identifier or other persistent or non-persistent device identifier; device software platform and firmware, mobile phone carrier and geo location data to help us understand your use of our website such as how often you return, what parts of the website you visit, how you use the website and how long you spend on the website. This third party provider is prohibited from using our data for any other purposes. Go to http://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html to read the Google Analytics Privacy Policy.
We only allow our service providers to handle your personal information if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal information. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers relating to ensure they can only use your personal information to provide services to us and to you.
We may disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
We may also need to share some personal information with other parties, such as potential buyers of some or all of our business or during a re-structuring. Usually, information will be anonymised but this may not always be possible. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.
How long your personal information will be kept
We will keep your personal information for as long as is necessary:
to respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf
to show that we treated you fairly
as required by law.
We will not retain personal information for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. When it is no longer necessary to retain your personal information, we will delete or anonymise it.
Please note that different retention periods apply to different rimes of personal information held. Further details on this are available in our data protection privacy notice for patients.
Transferring your personal information out of the EEA
It is sometimes necessary for us to share your personal information outside the European Economic Area (EEA), e.g. with our service providers located outside of the EEA.
These transfers are subject to special rules under European and UK data protection law.
These non-EEA countries do not have the same data protection laws as the UK and EEA. We will, however, ensure the transfer complies with data protection law and all personal information will be secure. Our standard practice is to ensure that any US-based suppliers are certified under the EU-US Privacy Shield scheme, or alternatively to use standard data protection contract clauses that have been approved by the European Commission.
If you would like further information on international transfers of data, this is available on request.
LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES
Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.
Your Privacy Rights
Data protection laws give you a number of rights as set out below. If you would like to exercise any of your rights, please contact us in writing.
Access: you may request access to a copy of your personal information.
Withdraw Consent: where our processing of your personal information is based on your consent, you can withdraw your consent at any time.
Rectification: you may ask us to rectify any inaccurate information we hold about you.
Erasure: you may ask us to delete the personal information we hold about you, where there is no reason for us to continue to hold your information.
Portability: you may ask us to provide you with the personal information that we hold about you in a structured, commonly used, machine readable format, or you can ask us to send your information in this format to another controller.
Object: you may object to our processing of your personal information.
Restriction: you can ask us to restrict the personal information we use about you where you have asked for it to be erased or where you have objected to our use of it.
If you are not happy with the way in which we process your personal information, or the way in which we handle any request by you to exercise your privacy rights, you may make a complaint to the ICO by visiting their website at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or on 0303 123 1113.
Keeping your personal information secure
We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
Changes to this privacy policy
This privacy notice was last updated on March 2023.
We may change this privacy notice from time to time—when we do we will inform you via an announcement on our website.
Cookies
A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your computer (or other electronic device) when you access our website. We use cookies on our website to:
recognise you whenever you visit our website (this speeds up your access to the website as you do not have to log in each time);
obtain information about your preferences, online movements and use of the internet;
carry out research and statistical analysis to help improve our content; and
make your online experience more efficient and enjoyable.
In most cases we will need your consent in order to use cookies on this website. The exception is where the cookie is essential in order for us to provide you with a service you have requested.
If you visit our website when your browser is set to accept cookies, we will interpret this as an indication that you consent to our use of cookies and other similar technologies as described in this website cookie policy. If you change your mind in the future about letting us use cookies, you can modify the settings of your browser to reject cookies or disable cookies completely.
If you do not want to accept cookies, you can change your browser settings so that cookies are not accepted. If you do this, please be aware that you may lose some of the functionality of our website. For further information about cookies and how to disable them please go to the ICO’s webpage on cookies: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies/
Complaints
We take complaints very seriously and try to ensure that all our patients are pleased with their experience of our service. When a patient complains, they are dealt with courteously and promptly so that the matter is resolved as quickly as possible. This procedure is based on these objectives.
Our aim is to react to complaints in the way in which we would want our complaint about a service to be handled. We learn from every mistake that we make and we respond to customers’ concerns in a caring and sensitive way.
The person responsible for dealing with any complaint about the service which we provide is our practice manager.
If a patient complains on the telephone or in person, we will listen to their complaint and offer to refer him or her to the Practice Manager immediately. If the Practice Manager is not available at the time, then the patient will be informed when they will be able to talk to the Practice Manager and arrangements will be made for this to happen. The member of staff will take brief details of the complaint and pass them on to the Practice Manager. If we cannot arrange this within a reasonable period or if the patient does not wish to wait to discuss the matter, arrangements will be made for someone else to deal with it.
If the patient complains in writing or by email, it will be passed on immediately to the Practice Manager.
If a complaint is about any aspect of clinical care or associated charges it will normally be referred to the dentist concerned, unless the patient does not want this to happen.
We will acknowledge the patient’s complaint in writing and enclose a copy of this code of practice within three working days.
We will seek to investigate the complaint within ten working days of receipt to give an explanation of the circumstances which led to the complaint. If the patient does not wish to meet us, then we will attempt to talk to them on the telephone. If we are unable to investigate the complaint within ten working days we will notify the patient, giving reasons for the delay and a likely period within which the investigation will be completed.
We will confirm the decision about the complaint in writing immediately after completing our investigation.
Proper and comprehensive records are kept of any complaint received as well as any actions taken to improve services as a consequence of a complaint.
If patients are not satisfied with the result of our procedure then a complaint may be made to:
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, Millbank Tower, Millbank, London, SW1P 4QP. Telephone: 0345 015 4033 www.ombudsman.org.uk
The Dental Complaints Service, The Lansdowne Building, 2 Lansdowne Road, Croydon, Greater London, CR9 2ER. Telephone: 08456 120 540 www.dentalcomplaints.org.uk
The General Dental Council, 37 Wimpole Street, London. W1N 8DQ. Telephone: 0845 222 4141, the dentists’ regulatory body for complaints about professional misconduct.