Privacy Policy

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Last updated: 17 August 2026

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Bowbridge Stroud Limited, trading as Bowbridge Vets (referred to in this policy as “Bowbridge Vets”, “we”, “us” or “our”), respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information.

This policy explains how we collect, use, store and share personal information when you use our website, contact us, register with the practice, book an appointment or use our veterinary services. It also explains your rights under UK data protection law.

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1. Who we are

Bowbridge Stroud Limited is the data controller responsible for deciding how and why your personal information is used.

Legal name: Bowbridge Stroud Limited
Trading name: Bowbridge Vets
Company number: 09572325
Registered office: Bowbridge Surgery, Butterow Hill, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2LA
Telephone: 01453 762350
Email: info@bowbridgevets.co.uk

If you have a question about this policy, our use of your information or your data protection rights, please contact us using the details above and mark your enquiry for the attention of the Data Protection Lead.

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2. The information we collect

The personal information we collect depends on how you interact with us. It may include:

Identity and contact information, such as your title, name, postal address, email address and telephone number.
Client and animal information, such as your pet’s name, species, breed, sex, age or date of birth, microchip number, vaccination history, insurance details and clinical history. Information about an animal is not normally personal information by itself, but may be linked to you as its owner or keeper.
Appointment and clinical information, including appointment details, correspondence, treatment decisions, consent forms, prescriptions, test results, referrals, clinical notes and communications about your pet’s care.
Payment and account information, such as invoices, transaction details, payment status, Pet Care Plan membership and information needed to administer insurance claims or recover unpaid fees. Payment card and Direct Debit information may be collected directly by our payment or plan providers rather than stored by us.
Enquiry and form information, including information you provide through our contact, pet registration and repeat prescription forms, by email, by telephone, through PetsApp or in person.
Marketing preferences, including whether you have asked to receive or stop receiving promotional communications.
Technical and usage information, such as your IP address, browser and device type, approximate location, pages visited, referring website, dates and times of visits, cookie choices and interactions with the website.
Any other information you choose to provide when communicating with us.

Please avoid including unnecessary confidential or sensitive information in a general website form. If your message is urgent or relates to an emergency, telephone the practice rather than relying on a website form.

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3. How we collect your information

We collect personal information:

directly from you when you register, make an enquiry, complete a form, book an appointment, use our services, make a payment or communicate with us;
from another person acting on your behalf, or from another owner or keeper of your pet;
from other veterinary practices, referral centres, laboratories, insurers, microchip databases and other animal-care providers where relevant to your pet’s care or where you have authorised the disclosure;
from PetsApp and other providers you choose to use to interact with us;
automatically when you use our website, through cookies and similar technologies; and
from public authorities, regulators or other organisations where the law permits or requires it.

If you give us personal information about another person, you should make sure you are entitled to do so and, where appropriate, that they have seen this policy.

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4. How and why we use your information

UK data protection law requires us to have a lawful basis for each use of personal information. We may use your information as follows:

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Purpose	Types of information	Lawful basis
Registering you and your pet, arranging appointments, providing veterinary care, dispensing medicines, taking payment and managing your account.	Identity, contact, client, animal, clinical, appointment, payment and account information.	Necessary to perform our contract with you, or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract.
Maintaining complete clinical and client records and complying with professional, medicines, tax, accounting and other legal requirements.	Identity, contact, clinical, prescription, payment and account information.	Compliance with a legal obligation and, where appropriate, our legitimate interests in keeping accurate records and operating a safe and accountable veterinary practice.
Contacting you about appointments, test results, treatment, prescriptions, your account, service changes, vaccination or treatment reminders, and other matters connected with your pet’s care.	Identity, contact, client, animal, clinical and appointment information.	Performance of our contract with you and our legitimate interests in supporting continuity of care and protecting animal health and welfare.
Managing referrals, laboratory tests, prescriptions, insurance claims, Pet Care Plans and continuity of care with other providers.	Identity, contact, client, animal, clinical, payment and account information.	Performance of our contract with you, compliance with legal obligations and our legitimate interests in arranging and administering appropriate care. We will seek consent where the circumstances require it.
Responding to enquiries, complaints, feedback, requests and potential legal claims.	Identity, contact, enquiry, clinical and account information.	Performance of a contract or steps taken at your request; our legitimate interests in providing customer service, resolving disputes and protecting our legal rights; and compliance with legal obligations.
Preventing fraud, protecting our staff, clients, systems and premises, maintaining IT security and investigating incidents.	Identity, contact, account and technical information.	Our legitimate interests in keeping our practice, people, information and systems safe, and compliance with legal obligations.
Sending news, offers or other direct marketing.	Identity, contact and marketing preference information.	Your consent where required by law. In limited cases, we may rely on the electronic marketing “soft opt-in” for existing customers, where permitted. You can opt out at any time.
Operating, securing and improving our website, remembering cookie choices and understanding how it is used.	Technical, usage and cookie-preference information.	Our legitimate interests for essential website operation and security. For non-essential cookies and analytics, your consent.
Complying with lawful requests and cooperating with courts, law enforcement, regulators and public authorities.	Any information relevant to the request.	Compliance with a legal obligation, the establishment or defence of legal claims, or a task carried out in the public interest, as applicable.

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Where we rely on legitimate interests, we consider whether the use is necessary and balance our interests against your rights and reasonable expectations. You may contact us if you would like more information about this assessment.

If we ask for information that is required by law or needed to provide veterinary services, we will explain this where it is not obvious. If you do not provide that information, we may be unable to register you, provide a requested service or properly care for your pet.

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5. Care communications and marketing

Messages about an existing appointment, prescription, test result, account, service interruption, vaccination or treatment due for your pet are service or care communications. We may send these where they are necessary to provide our services or where we have a legitimate interest in supporting your pet’s health and welfare. They are not treated in the same way as general promotional marketing.

We will only send promotional emails or text messages where we have a lawful basis to do so. You can withdraw consent or opt out of marketing at any time by using the unsubscribe method in the message or contacting us. Opting out of marketing will not prevent us from sending essential service or care communications.

We may keep a minimal suppression record after you opt out so that we can respect your preference in future.

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6. Sensitive personal information

Veterinary records primarily concern animals, but you may sometimes provide sensitive information about yourself, for example where a health condition or disability affects how we should communicate with you or provide access to our services.

We will only use this type of information where it is necessary and UK data protection law permits us to do so. Depending on the circumstances, this may be with your explicit consent, to protect someone’s vital interests, to establish or defend legal claims, or for another condition permitted by law. We ask that you do not provide sensitive personal information unless it is relevant and necessary.

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7. Who we share information with

We may share personal information where necessary with:

other veterinary practices, referral centres, specialists, emergency or out-of-hours providers and other animal healthcare providers;
diagnostic laboratories, pharmacies, medicine suppliers, crematoria and other providers involved in your pet’s care;
pet insurers, where you ask us to assist with a claim or otherwise authorise the disclosure;
PetsApp, where you use its appointment, messaging or other services;
payment processors, banks, accountants, auditors, debt-recovery providers and professional advisers;
Webflow, which hosts our website and processes submissions made through Webflow forms on our behalf;
website, analytics and mapping providers, including Google, where you consent to the relevant non-essential technologies;
IT support, cybersecurity, communications, document storage and other suppliers that process information on our behalf;
regulators, professional bodies, courts, law enforcement, government bodies and other authorities where disclosure is required or permitted by law; and
a purchaser, investor or professional adviser if we sell, transfer or restructure all or part of our business, subject to appropriate confidentiality protections.

We only share information that is reasonably necessary for the relevant purpose. Providers acting as our processors must use personal information only on our instructions, keep it secure and comply with applicable data protection requirements. Some organisations, such as another veterinary practice, an insurer or a payment provider, may act as a separate data controller and will explain their own use of your information in their privacy notice.

We do not sell your personal information.

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8. Third-party services and links

Our website links to third-party services, including PetsApp and the Pet Care Plan sign-up service. Our contact page may also display Google Maps. If you follow a link or use a third-party service, that provider may collect personal information directly from you and its own privacy policy will apply.

We are not responsible for the privacy practices of independent third parties. We encourage you to read their privacy information before providing personal information.

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9. Cookies and analytics

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies. Some are strictly necessary for the website to function or to remember your privacy choices. With your consent, we may also use non-essential technologies, including Google Analytics, to understand how visitors use the website, and Google Maps to display interactive maps.

Non-essential cookies and similar technologies should not be activated until you have made a choice. You can accept, reject or change your choices through the cookie controls on our website. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing that took place before withdrawal.

More information about the cookies we use, their providers and how long they remain on your device is available in our Cookie Policy and through Cookie Settings.

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10. International transfers

Some of our technology and service providers, or their support teams, may process personal information outside the United Kingdom.

Where a restricted transfer is made, we will ensure that an approved transfer mechanism is in place. This may include transferring information to a country covered by UK adequacy regulations, using the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or UK Addendum to approved standard contractual clauses, or relying on another safeguard or exception permitted by law. Where required, we will also assess the protections available in the destination country.

You may contact us for more information about the safeguards used for a particular transfer.

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11. How long we keep information

We keep personal information only for as long as it is reasonably needed for the purpose for which it was collected, including to meet legal, regulatory, professional, accounting and insurance requirements and to establish or defend legal claims.

Our main retention criteria are:

Client and clinical records: kept for the duration of our relationship with you and afterwards for the period required by applicable legal and professional obligations, the nature of the treatment provided, continuity-of-care needs, limitation periods and our professional indemnity arrangements.
Veterinary medicine and prescription records: retained for at least the minimum period required by applicable veterinary medicines law; this is five years for a number of veterinary medicine records.
Financial and transaction records: generally retained for six years after the end of the relevant financial period, unless a longer period is required in connection with a dispute, investigation or legal obligation.
General enquiries that do not become part of a client record: normally retained for up to 24 months after the enquiry is closed, unless they need to be kept longer for a complaint, dispute, safeguarding matter or legal claim.
Website form submissions: retained within our website-form systems only for as long as needed to receive, route and record the enquiry, and then deleted or transferred into the appropriate client or business record in line with the relevant retention period above.
Marketing records: retained until you opt out or we determine that the information is no longer current. A minimal suppression record may be kept for longer to ensure that we continue to honour an opt-out request.
Cookie consent records and analytics data: retained for the periods described in our Cookie Policy or cookie settings, subject to the settings and retention controls of the relevant service.

At the end of the relevant period, we will securely delete or anonymise the information unless we are required or permitted to keep it for longer.

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12. How we protect your information

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures designed to protect personal information against accidental or unlawful loss, misuse, alteration, disclosure or access. These measures include access controls, secure systems, staff procedures, supplier due diligence and incident-management processes appropriate to the nature and risk of the information.

Access to personal information is limited to people and providers that need it for legitimate business purposes and who are subject to duties of confidentiality. If a personal data breach occurs, we will assess it and notify affected individuals and the Information Commissioner’s Office where the law requires us to do so.

No internet transmission or storage system is completely secure. Please take care when sending information electronically and do not use a general website form for urgent or highly confidential matters.

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13. Your data protection rights

Depending on the circumstances, you may have the right to:

ask for access to the personal information we hold about you;
ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information;
ask us to delete your information;
ask us to restrict how we use your information;
object to processing based on legitimate interests or to direct marketing;
receive certain information in a portable format or ask us to transfer it to another organisation;
withdraw consent at any time where we rely on consent; and
ask for human intervention where a decision with legal or similarly significant effects is made solely by automated means.

These rights are not absolute. For example, we may need to retain clinical, medicines, financial or other records to comply with legal and professional obligations or to establish or defend legal claims.

To exercise a right, contact us using the details in section 1. We may ask for information to verify your identity and clarify your request. You will not normally have to pay a fee. We aim to respond within one month, although the law allows additional time for certain complex or numerous requests; if that applies, we will let you know.

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14. Complaints

If you are concerned about how we use your personal information, please contact us first so that we can try to resolve the matter.

You also have the right to complain to the UK data protection regulator:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Website: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint

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15. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, suppliers or legal obligations. The current version will be published on our website and the “last updated” date will be changed. Where a change is significant, we may also take reasonable steps to bring it to your attention.