Privacy Policy

This policy explains what personal information Ringneill Equine Clinic keeps, what we do with it, and the limited circumstances in which we may share your data with others when you register as a client, purchase our services and products, and use our website.

We treat any personal information that you provide is as confidential and will be used and recorded in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 1998. We promise to look after your personal information and we will not sell any information about you to any other party.

Ringneill Equine Clinic, with the registered address 53 Ringneill Road, Comber, Newtowanrds, BT23 6EF establishes the processes set to handle personal data that you provide us with.

About Us

Founded in 2019 Ringneill Equine Clinic is a first and second opinion equine veterinary clinic providing veterinary services for horses, ponies and donkeys across Northern Ireland.

Ringneill provides extensive ambulatory veterinary services complimented by clinical facilities and diagnostic imaging at the clinic based in Co.Down.

Who to contact about your personal data

At Ringneill Equine Clinic, your privacy is of paramount importance to us. Our Data Controller looks after data protection, and would be happy to answer any of your questions about this privacy policy and how Ringneill Equine Clinic uses your data. They can be contacted directly at: 53 Ringneill Road, Comber, Newtowanrds, BT23 6EF or by calling/eamiling the office.

What personal data we collect and process

There are four main ways we process the personal data you provide. We endeavor to keep this information accurate and up-to-date and not keep it longer than is necessary.

To administer your account as a surgery client

In order to provide our service effectively and ensure the best possible care for your pet, we need to collect and process the following personal data when we register you as a client.

Personal data type How the data is collected

First name, Last name As part of registering to be a client

Address As part of registering to be a client

Phone number (normally a mobile) As part of registering to be a client

Email address As part of registering to be a client

The personal data will be used for the following services and purposes:

To administer your account and provide the products and services you have requested from us. For example, calling to change an appointment and to keep a record for legal and accounting purposes.

If you have equine insurance, and you wish to make a claim, we will pass on your horse’s clinical history with your name and address to your insurance company to allow them to process the claim.

To inform you of service information about the clinic. For example, notifications of seasonal opening times or changes to out of hours availability – please see our social media platforms for updates as well.

To support your pets welfare we will send you legitimate communications as a client

We communicate with a number of third parties that are linked to our Animana IT system. We also send you communication letters, emails and texts for the following reasons:

Reminders for vaccinations, clinical notes, invoices and reminders for outstanding accounts.

Please note, that they are only sent to existing clients, and you can opt out at any time from our communication updates.

The personal data that we process for these communications is: first name, email address, home address and the mobile phone number that you have provided us with.

We feel it is important for our clients to enjoy our communications, so it is important to note that you have opt out if you would rather not be contacted using a certain communication modality.

To share with veterinary related 3rd parties WITH your consent

Ringneill Equine Clinic uses a number of veterinary IT systems.

These third parties include:

Weatherbys, Horse Board Ireland, Leisure Horse Ireland and Pet ID  – when you get your horse microchipped at our clinic, we send the unique number and your horse’s details to the governing body applicable for registration and passport purposes.

IDEXX Animana – we use Animana for our Practice Management System. We keep all of your personal details in our system along with any notes from consultations and appointments. This is a highly secure, cloud based system to store your details and your pet’s details. For more information regarding our IT systems, please get in contact with our Data Controller. For Animana’s privacy policy, please see: https://www.idexx.com/en/about-idexx/privacy-policy/

Moving Veterinary Clinics – if you have requested to leave Ringneill Equine Clinic as a client and move to another clinic, we will transfer all the medical history of your horse to your chosen clinic.

We prescribe your horse’s medications from our own stock of medications – we do not share your information with any third party medical supplier.

Ringneill Equine Clinic will not pass on your personal information to any third parties without your consent unless the law requires us to do so. We will never share any of your personal information with any other client registered at the clinic.

When you use our website www.ringneillequineclinic.co.uk

The information that Ringneill Equine Clinic collects and stores relating to you is primarily used to enable us to provide our services to you. We will collect information from you when you use our online registration forms.

How we protect your data sent to us online

Ringneill Equine Clinic complies with the standard procedures and requirements as laid down by applicable law to ensure that your personal information is kept secure. We use the latest in Secure Server Technology (SSL and HTTPS Encryptions) to ensure that all your information is protected to the highest standards.

Links to other websites:

Our website has buttons that link through to our social media platforms, if you follow these links, you are leaving our website. Please note, that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these websites’ protection and privacy policies and procedures.

Please check the social media platform’s privacy policies before you submit any personal information to the linked websites.

Where Ringneill Equine Clinic sends your data

We do not transfer your personal information outside of the European Union. Our web hosting service is based in the UK, and therefore any data collected from our website is kept secure in the UK.

Our IT system is based in our personal cloud systems and we also use UK based service providers, which are all familiar with our privacy policy and our business practices. Please note, that we are not responsible or liable for any breaches by any other company other than Ringneill Equine Clinic.

How long we process your data for

Ringneill Equine Clinic will keep your information for as long as you are a client of ours. We will securely store any of your information and details until you request us to remove it from our database.

We securely store and manage any paper records, for example consent forms for a minimum of seven years. This is because we are legally obliged to do so.

Our aim is to have a long standing relationship with our clients. We understand the circumstances in which you may no longer need our services, but we will keep you on our system if ever in the future you would like to come to us again. If you wish to remove yourself from our client list, please contact the clinic and would be more than happy to help you.

How we keep your data secure

Ringneill Equine Clinic have invested in the most secure software systems in order to keep your personal information safe and confidential. Our computer systems are password protected, and any physical data is kept in a locked room in a filing cabinet. Only authorised personnel have access to this information.

Your personal information will be stored until we no longer have a legitimate use for it. We cannot put a specific time frame on this, as every customer will have varied needs.

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclose, we have put in place physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect from you.

You have the right to access your information and the right to correction

You have the following rights as a data subject:

Right of access – you have the right to request a copy of the information we hold about you (please note you will need to verify your identity before we provide you with this)

Right of rectification – you have a right to correct any inaccurate or incomplete data

Right to be forgotten – you can ask for the data we hold about you to be erased from our records

Right of portability – you have the right to have the data we hold about you transferred to another organisation

How to contact us

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about our Privacy Policy or personal information we may hold about you:

Email us on: office@ringneillequineclinic.co.uk

Write to us: Ringneill Equine Clinic, 53 Ringneill Road, Comber, Newtowanrds, BT23 6EF

While we hope to enable to resolve any concerns you have about the way we are processing your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you believe that your data has been mistreated and does not comply with the General Data Protection Regulation or if you have any wider concerns about our compliance with the data protection law. You can contact the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113, or via their website: https://ico.org.uk/