Privacy & cookies

Our privacy policy is governed by the principle of only collecting and using personal details when they help us provide a better service or an improved experience of our website.

Our privacy policy

This privacy policy explains what information we collect from people who use our website, how we track our visitors and what we do with the details you provide. The information we collect via the website may include:

Any personal details you knowingly provide us with through forms or email, such as your name, address or telephone number.
Your preferences and use of email updates, recorded by emails we send you (if you select to receive email updates)
Your IP Address: this is a string of numbers unique to your computer that is recorded by our web server when you request any page or component on the website. This information is used to measure your usage of the website.

Cookies

When you visit a website, it may send small files to your computer called cookies. These cannot be used to identify you personally, but can make the website work more efficiently for you by improving the time required to access pages and reducing the number of times you need to enter information. Cookies also enable website owners to understand how people are using the website so they can improve the online experience they provide. Most browsers can be programmed to reject cookies, or to warn you before you download them, however this may hamper your experience of the websites you visit. Information on how to manage cookies may be found in your browser’s help button, or in more detail on websites like cookies.insites.com.

How we use cookies

We use Google Analytics to collect data and measure traffic to our site. This shows us how our visitors are using our site and helps us to spot any issues that may be occurring. It also enables us to implement our online advertising and remarketing, which enables our ads to be shown on other websites. Although we use cookies, such as the Google Analytics cookie and the DoubleClick cookie, to serve you advertising based on your past visits to our website, we do not use cookies to gather information which could be used to target advertisements to you on other websites, or to remember your preferences after you leave our website. To view Google Analytics’ available opt-outs for the web click here.

Below you can see which cookies we use, and why we have them.

The cookies we use

Necessary

COOKIE	DOMAIN	PURPOSE	EXPIRES
cookieStatus	www.practiceplusgroup.com	A necessary cookie to determine your cookie preferences.	1 month
SESS + Unique key	www.practiceplusgroup.com	This cookie is required for the careers searches, it also provides navigational aids based on a visitors journey	Session
has_js	www.practiceplusgroup.com	We use this cookie to indicate whether or not the visitors browser has JavaScript enabled	Session

Statistics

COOKIE	DOMAIN	PURPOSE	EXPIRES
_ga	.practiceplusgroup.com	Google Analytics cookie: Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website.	2 years
_gid	.practiceplusgroup.com	Google Analytics cookie: Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website.	Session
_dc_gtm_UA-59918153-1	.practiceplusgroup.com	Google Analytics cookie: Used by Google Analytics to throttle request rate.	Session
_gat_cqcTracker	.practiceplusgroup.com	Google Analytics cookie: Used to track views of the CQC (Care Quality Commission) widget.	1 minute

Marketing

COOKIE	DOMAIN	PURPOSE	EXPIRES
/tr	www.facebook.com	Facebook pixel event tracking.	Session
fr	.facebook.com	Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers.	3 months
GPS	.youtube.com	Registers a unique ID on mobile devices to enable tracking based on geographical GPS location.	Session
PREF	.youtube.com	Registers a unique ID that is used by Google to keep statistics of how the visitor uses YouTube videos across different websites.	8 months
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE	.youtube.com	Tries to estimate the users’ bandwidth on pages with integrated YouTube videos.	179 days
YSC	.youtube.com	Registers a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen	Session
ceac	.crazyegg.com	Account ID number	1 year
cean	.crazyegg.com	Anonymous ID number	1 year
cean_asoc	.crazyegg.com	Associates Anonymous ID with logged-in user	1 year
gdpr_consent	.crazyegg.com	Account ID number	1 year
km_ai, km_lv	KISSmetrics	Provide information about how visitors use the site	5 years
optimizelyBuckets	Optimizely	Store page variants assigned to visitors for A/B performance testing	6 months
optimizelyEndUserId	Optimizely	Unique visitor identifier	6 months
optimizelySegments	Optimizely	Visitor audience segmentation information	6 months

What we do with your information

Any personal information we collect from this website is used only in accordance with the General data Protection Regulations and other applicable laws. We may need to pass the information we collect to other companies for administrative purposes. We may use third parties to carry out certain activities, such as processing and sorting job applications, monitoring how customers use the website and issuing emails for us. These third parties will not be allowed to use your personal information for their own purposes.

Your rights

You have the right to request a copy of any information that we currently hold about you. In order to receive such information, please send your contact details including address to the following address:

Privacy
Practice Plus Group Quality and Governance Team
Hawker House
5-6 Napier Court
Napier Road
Reading
Berkshire RG1 8BW

Data handling

Practice Plus Group have a team of senior staff members of whom a responsible for the safe handling and transfer of data throughout our Health Care division.

Key team members:

Serious Information Risk Owner: Barry Nee, Chief Information Officer
Data Protection Officer: Shepherd Makusha. The DPO can be contacted at dpo@practiceplusgroup.com
Caldicott Guardian: Dr Marjorie Gillespie, Medical Director for Primary Care

Caldicott Guardian

A Caldicott Guardian is a senior person responsible for protecting the confidentiality of people’s health and care information and making sure it is used properly. All NHS organisations and local authorities which provide social services must have a Caldicott Guardian.

If you have any queries regarding the sharing of information, please email caldicott.guardian@practiceplusgroup.com.

Privacy Notices

Our privacy notices have been updated to ensure that they are aligned with the new GDPR regulations. Please click here to see the current versions.

Complaints

Our complaints procedure is based on three stages detailed below and is designed to make sure that we work with you to resolve any complaints as quickly as possible.

Stage 1

Contact first with the local manager and clinician to discuss your concerns and if this is the case arrangements will be made for this to happen at a mutually convenient time.

You can make your complaint:

In person / by telephone – ask to speak to the Manager and investigation will proceed.

Stage 2

If you are unhappy with the response you received from the local Manager you can request an internal review. Depending on the nature of your complain, please choose one of the following two contacts:

For treatement centres, clinical assessments and treatment services (CATS) and Minor Injury and Illness Units (MIIU), please contact:

Andy Lunt
Secondary Care Managing Director
Practice Plus Group Hawker House
5-6 Napier Court
Napier Road
Reading
Berkshire RG1 8BW

For GP practices, NHS 111, out-of-hours and prisons, please contact:

Ross Dowsett
Primary Care Managing Director
Practice Plus Group Hawker House
Building 1330,
Arlington Business Park,
Theale,
Reading
RG7 4SA

Stage 3

If, following internal review – stage two, you are still dissatisfied with the outcome of the internal investigations; you may request an external review of your complaint from:

The Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO)
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London SW1P 4QP

CQC National Customer Service Centre
Citygate
Gallowgate
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4PA

The NHS complaints procedure is available through the department of Health’s website (www.dh.gov.uk).

The Independent Complaints Advocacy Service (ICAS) provides support in dealing with complaints.

Details of your local ICAS office can be found at: http://www.seap.org.uk/services/nhs-complaints-advocacy/

You can also contact ICAS via:

Email at info@seap.org.uk
Telephone on 0330 4409000

At anytime you can request that your complaint is handled under the NHS Complaints Procedure, which entitles you to be represented by the Independent Complaints Advocacy Service (ICAS).

Other websites

This privacy policy only covers Practice Plus Group websites. Any other websites, which may be linked to from our website are subject to their own privacy policy, which may differ from ours.