What we hold about you, and why
This notice explains what personal information Corvus Lane Veterinary holds about you, why we hold it, who we share it with, how long we keep it and what you can ask us to do about it. It is written to be read rather than to be defensible in court, which we think is the right way round.
We are the data controller for this information. If you have a question about any of it, or want to make a request, the practice manager is the person to ask: manager@corvuslanevet.example.com, or telephone 01632 960 480 during reception hours.
The short version
If you read nothing else on this page, read this. Everything below is the same thing at greater length.
We hold what a vet needs to hold
Your name, address, telephone numbers, email address and contact preferences; the clinical records of your animals; appointments, invoices and payments; correspondence with you; and your insurer and policy number where relevant.
That is essentially the whole list. We do not hold your card details, we do not buy information about you from anybody, and we do not ask for anything we have no use for.
Who we are
Corvus Lane Veterinary is an independent small animal veterinary practice at Unit 7, Ashfield Green Business Court, Ashfield Green AG7 2QP. We are the data controller for the personal information described in this notice, which means we decide what is collected and why, and we are accountable for it.
Our contact for data protection matters is the practice manager, Grace Whitlock. Write to manager@corvuslanevet.example.com, telephone 01632 960 480, or ask at the desk. If you would rather put something in writing on paper, post it to the address above marked for her attention.
This notice covers clients, prospective clients, people who contact us with an enquiry, visitors to the premises and visitors to this website. Information about our own staff is handled separately and is not covered here.
What we collect
Almost all of it comes directly from you, either at registration or during the ordinary course of looking after your animals. A small amount comes from your previous veterinary practice when records are transferred, from a referral centre or laboratory acting on our instructions, or from a microchip database when we scan a found animal.
About your animals
- Name, species, breed, sex, date of birth, colour and distinguishing marks
- Microchip number and the database it is registered with
- Clinical history: examinations, diagnoses, treatments, medicines dispensed and doses
- Radiographs, ultrasound images, dental charts and clinical photographs
- Laboratory results, both our own and those from external laboratories
- Consent forms, anaesthetic records and theatre notes
- Reports from referral centres and from the out-of-hours service
- Appointment history, including missed appointments
Records about an animal are, in law, information about you as well, because they are linked to your client account.
Why we hold it, and our lawful bases
We hold it in order to provide veterinary services to your animals, to contact you about their care, to take payment, to meet our legal and professional record-keeping obligations, and to send reminders where you have asked for them.
Our lawful bases are:
- Performance of a contract with you. Booking and providing appointments, dispensing medicines, invoicing and taking payment.
- Compliance with a legal obligation. Veterinary medicines records, controlled drug registers, clinical record retention and tax records are all required by law, and we have no discretion about keeping them.
- Legitimate interests. Running a veterinary practice safely and efficiently: maintaining clinical records so that the next vet who sees your animal knows what happened, health reminders, clinical audit, premises security, and recovering unpaid accounts.
- Vital interests of an animal's owner or of a person present. Rarely, and only in an emergency — for example, contacting a next of kin about an animal after an accident.
- Consent. Used for a small number of optional things: text-message reminders, taking a clinical photograph during a video consultation, and using a photograph or comment for anything other than the clinical record. Consent can be withdrawn at any time by telling us, and withdrawing it never affects your animal's care.
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered whether what we are doing is reasonable and proportionate and whether it would surprise you. If you think we have got that balance wrong in your case, tell us; you have a right to object, and it is set out below.
Particular situations
Four things people ask about specifically, set out separately because the general answer above does not cover them well enough.
Photographs, feedback and reviews
Clinical photographs are part of the clinical record and are taken because they are clinically useful. They are not used for anything else without asking you first, separately and specifically.
Comments reproduced on this website come from feedback cards and public review pages, are used with permission, and have surnames shortened. If you have given permission and later change your mind, tell us and we will remove the comment at the next update to the site.
We do not photograph animals in the waiting room, and we ask clients not to photograph or film other people's animals or our staff on the premises.
How long we keep it
Clinical records are kept for a long time on purpose. An entry from nine years ago is quite often the key to a problem that appears today, and a record thrown away is gone for good.
| What | How long | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Clinical records and images | Minimum 7 years from the last entry | Professional obligation; in practice we usually keep them longer |
| Consent forms and anaesthetic records | Minimum 7 years | Part of the clinical record |
| Veterinary medicines records | 5 years | Required by medicines legislation |
| Invoices, receipts and accounts | 6 years after the end of the tax year | Required by tax law |
| Insurance claim correspondence | 6 years from the claim | In case of a later query or dispute |
| General email correspondence | 2 years | Then deleted unless it forms part of a record above |
| Ward camera footage | 14 days | Overwritten automatically thereafter |
| Website enquiry messages | 12 months | Then deleted unless you become a client |
| Contact details for a closed account | Removed once the periods above have passed | There is nothing left to contact you about |
| Job applications | 6 months | Then deleted, unless you ask us to keep them on file |
Where a record is subject to more than one period — a clinical note that is also part of an insurance claim, for instance — we keep it for the longer of the two.
How we look after it
Records are held on a practice management system with access limited to the staff who need it, each with an individual account and their own password. Nobody shares a login, and entries are attributable to the person who made them. Access is removed the day somebody leaves.
Paper records — consent forms, laboratory paperwork, the controlled drugs register — are stored in a locked area of the building that clients do not enter. Anything containing personal information is shredded rather than binned.
Backups are taken daily, are encrypted and are held both on site and off site. Access to them is restricted to the practice manager and the system supplier. We test a restore periodically, on the principle that an untested backup is a rumour.
Our team receives data protection training at induction and refresher training as part of the quarterly closed afternoons. If we ever suffer a breach that is likely to affect your rights, we will report it to the regulator within the statutory period and tell you directly.
Your rights
All of these are exercised by contacting the practice manager. There is no charge, and we answer within one month. If a request is unusually complex we may take longer, but we will tell you within the month that we are doing so and why.
The right to object to processing based on legitimate interests
Where we rely on legitimate interests — health reminders, clinical audit, premises security — you may object, and we will stop unless we can show compelling grounds that override your rights, or the processing is needed for legal claims.
In practice, the commonest use of this is somebody who would rather not receive reminders. That takes one sentence to reception and there is no need to invoke anything formal.
The right to restrict processing while something is disputed
If you have told us that something we hold is inaccurate, or you have objected to processing, you may ask us to restrict what we do with that information while the question is resolved. We will hold it but not otherwise use it, other than where a legal claim or the safety of an animal requires.
We will tell you before any restriction is lifted.
The right to complain
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first — write to the practice manager and we will look into it and reply. Most concerns turn out to be a misunderstanding that takes ten minutes to clear up.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you are entitled to complain to the national data protection authority, and you do not need our permission or our agreement to do so. We will give you their current contact details on request.
Cookies and this website
This website does not use cookies. It does not run analytics or tracking of any kind. It does not load anything from any other website: no fonts, no images, no scripts, no maps, no video players, no social media widgets and no advertising. Every page is a single self-contained file, and the illustrations on it are drawn in the page itself rather than fetched from anywhere.
The practical consequence is that nothing you do while reading these pages is recorded by us, beyond the ordinary server log entry created whenever a web page is requested. That entry contains the address of the page, the time, and technical details such as the browser making the request. It is kept briefly for security and troubleshooting, is not used to build any profile of visitors, and is not shared.
There is no consent banner on this site. That is not an oversight; there is genuinely nothing to consent to.
The small amount of JavaScript on these pages does one thing: it opens and closes the navigation menu on a narrow screen. It sends nothing anywhere, and the site works without it.
The enquiry form
The contact page carries a simple enquiry form asking for a name, an email address and a message. That is deliberately all it asks for. We will never ask you through this website for a password, for card or bank details, or for any other financial information, and you should be suspicious of any page claiming to be us that does.
Messages sent through the form arrive in the same mailbox as ordinary email to reception, are read during office hours, and are handled exactly as described in this notice. They are kept for twelve months unless you become a client, in which case the correspondence joins your record.
Ordinary email is not a secure medium, and we would not send anything genuinely sensitive by it without thinking first. Every address shown on this site goes directly to the practice; none of them is forwarded to a third party. If you write to us, your message is stored in our mailbox and handled as set out above.
Please do not send us anything urgent by email. It is read during office hours only. For anything that worries you now, telephone 01632 960 480, at any hour.
Related policies
Three shorter statements that sit alongside this notice. Our full terms of business are in the policies section of the home page.
Accessibility
We aim to make both the building and this website usable by everybody. The premises are step-free, with an accessible lavatory, wide doors, marked bays beside the entrance and both consulting rooms on the ground floor.
These pages are built to work at large text sizes, with keyboard navigation and with a screen reader. Colour contrast has been checked, every illustration carries a text description, and the layout reflows rather than requiring you to scroll sideways. They also print sensibly, which matters more than it sounds when somebody wants the opening hours on the fridge.
If you find something difficult to use, or would like any information from this site in large print, tell us and we will provide it. Accessibility problems are treated as faults, not as requests.
Changes to this notice
We review this notice at least once a year and whenever something material changes about how we work. The date of the last review is at the top of this page.
Where a change is significant — a new category of information, a new recipient, a different retention period — we will say so plainly here and, where it affects you directly, tell you.
The last substantive change was in 2024, when the ward cameras and the overnight monitoring stream were added and the sections covering them were written.
Asking us about your information
Every request under this notice goes to the practice manager, Grace Whitlock. You do not need to use any particular form of words, quote any legislation, or explain why you are asking.
Email manager@corvuslanevet.example.com
Telephone 01632 960 480 during reception hours
Post Practice Manager, Corvus Lane Veterinary, Unit 7, Ashfield Green Business Court, Ashfield Green AG7 2QP
We reply within one month, there is no charge, and asking will never affect the care your animals receive.
Home
Services, fees, opening hours and our full terms of business. Home page.
About the practice
How we work, what is in the building and who you will meet. About page.
Video consultations
Remote appointments and the overnight ward stream. Read more.
Telephone numbers, email addresses and directions are on the contact page.