The Pharmacy Group
The Pharmacy Group
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Privacy Policy

The Pharmacy Group take the privacy and security of our customers personal and medical information very seriously. The Privacy Policy set out below explains who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal information. It also describes your rights concerning your personal information and how to contact us or supervisory authorities if you have a complaint.  

If you follow a link from our website to a third party's website, this privacy policy will no longer apply. The Pharmacy Group is not responsible for any third-party websites' information handling practices and recommends that you read the privacy policy specific to such websites.

By creating an account or using our website, you agree to the collection, use and disclosure of your information by The Pharmacy Group under the terms of this privacy policy.

Information About Us

The Pharmacy Group is a trading name for Missionstart Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales with a Company Registration Number 07992671 based at 8 Manor Rd, Holbeck, Leeds, LS11 9AH. The Pharmacy Group is registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council as Missionstart Ltd under registration number 9010999

The Pharmacy Group is included in the Information Commissioner's Register of Data Controllers, with registration number: ZA 098796

What Personal Information We Collect

In order to provide you with the services you require, we will collect personal information about you from our website, telephone conversations, emails, written and verbal communications.

We will only use the information that we collect about you lawfully (in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations (GSPR)(EU) 2016/679).

The type of information that we will collect during your registration process on the website are:

  • Name
  • Address (Home & Alternate Address)
  • Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, e.g. your date of birth
  • Your Gender Information
  • Phone Number
  • Email Address
  • IP Address (for security reasons)
  • your responses to surveys, e.g. prescription survey
  • Exemption details - if you do not pay for your prescriptions
  • Preferred delivery address information and contact details
  • Data gathered by the use of cookies in your web browser

Please note: We will not email you unless you have given us your consent. If you are already subscribed to receive our marketing emails, you may opt-out at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the end of every email we send you or by contacting us directly.

Use of Information by The Pharmacy Group

By creating an online account, the information you provide will be used by The Pharmacy Group to verify your identity, to register you and to process any orders for goods and/or services received, the provision of health care or treatment, the management of health care systems, or necessary for reasons of public health in the area of public health.

We collect information about you for the following reasons:

  • To process your order.
  • To fulfil your prescription.
  • To deliver our consultation services, we may need to understand further information about your health & wellbeing.
  • To provide you with the best service possible and to inform you regarding any future products/services that we will offer in the future.
  • Record details of all medicines and other products we supply to you, and medicines that you or your doctor tell us you may have from us on repeat prescription.
  • When the patient registers online for our delivery or collection service, we will share your information with your chosen Pharmacy Group branch. We do this in order for them to receive your delivery/collection preferences, prescription details and allow them to dispense and deliver medication for you directly from your chosen local branch.
  • As part of the online registration process, we will collect your data from NHS services such as your GP/surgery or hospital. We will view your NHS Summary Care Record in order to provide the service you have requested. We will only view this if you have provided your consent to do so, and it is deemed clinically appropriate.
  • If you create an account with us online, we may collect your IP addresses as part of the login process. This is a security feature to protect your Account, in case of any unauthorised access attempts.
  • To help us deliver the best possible website experience, we collect usage data about your browser type, Internet Protocol addresses ('IP'), device information, pages viewed during your visit, advertisements or services you clicked on, and any search terms you may enter on our platform. For more information on our Cookie Policy, please go to (link)
  • We will use your health/medication information to dispense and deliver your prescriptions or provide other healthcare services you have requested.

Please note: We will never use information about your prescriptions for marketing, although as part of improving our service to you, we may use information advise you of other health services/products that might be beneficial or relevant to you.

  • If you have opted to join our mailing list, we will use your data to send health and wellbeing advice and information about our products and services.
  • When signing up to one of our pharmacies, we will send you SMS messages as part of our prescription delivery & collection service. 
  • We may use your mobile phone number to help us enhance our services to beneļ¬t our customers. A good example of this applies to sending you an SMS message about our in-pharmacy services like flu vaccinations. Please note: We will ensure that there is a facility to opt-out of any marketing messages we send, or you can always contact us directly.
  • If you are a customer of an existing pharmacy that has been taken over by us, we could receive your personal information as part of the handover process. During this process, we will place a notice in the pharmacy to tell you that your personal information is changing hands. 
  • If we sell one of our business assets, then we may need to share your personal data with the new owner. In the event of selling a pharmacy, we will place a notice in the impacted pharmacy, or notify you directly, to tell you that your personal information is being shared.
  • During a phone call, we may record notes. We do this to ensure and improve quality of service delivery, to ensure the safety of our staff and customers, and to resolve queries or issues. Doing so is a legal obligation.
  • Our delivery service: By registering for one of our pharmacy branches to deliver your prescription to you, as part of delivering this service, we may use your personal information to contact you. For example, to send you reminders regarding repeat prescriptions or service appointment or to notify you of a change (e.g. that your prescription is ready to collect or out for delivery).
  • We use our own delivery drivers as part of our prescription delivery service. Unfortunately, we can only offer this service with 12 miles of your nearest Pharmacy Group branch.  If you live outside of our delivery catchment area, we will deliver your medication via the Royal Mail. We will only pass on your delivery address and contact details to facilitate delivery. Please note that we will never share any other information with Royal Mail.
  • To fulfil our contractual requirements with the NHS, we need to share your personal information with your GP and others in the wider NHS, such as the NHS Business Services Authority, and sometimes Local Authorities to provide you with NHS or Local Authority funded services, to negotiate and check the accuracy of our payments with the NHS or Local Authorities and to ensure that we maintain appropriate professional and service standards and that your declarations and ours are accurate. This is necessary to perform the service and a legal requirement.

 

If The Pharmacy Group opens an account for you, we will use the information provided to administer your Account.

Unless you have expressly asked us not to do so, The Pharmacy Group may use the information provided for marketing purposes, to undertake marketing analysis and to make general improvements to the website and our products and services.

All The Pharmacy Group registered branches are all GPhC registered and our pharmacists are all vetted to ensure they have the correct certification.

Disclosure of information by The Pharmacy Group to third parties

The Pharmacy Group may share your information with any of our associated organisations or business partners for administrative purposes and so that any information or goods or services you have requested can be provided.

The Pharmacy Group may also share your information with any organisation that buys or is interested in buying our business or assets, or to whom The Pharmacy Group transfers its agreement with you, and in the course of any negotiations that may or may not lead to such a transfer or sale.

The Pharmacy Group may allow third party providers and contractors who supply goods or services to us or who process the information on our behalf incidental access to your information. In such circumstances, we will endeavour to ensure that such third parties keep your information secure and do not use it for their own purposes.

The Pharmacy Group will disclose any information provided if required to do so by law (such disclosure may be to enforcement authorities or to a third party in the context of actual or threatened legal proceedings) to the extent so required. Unless permitted or required to do so by law, we will not otherwise share, sell or distribute any of the information provided to us by you without your consent.

Cookies

The website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of the website and to provide increased functionality when you are using the website. This helps The Pharmacy Group to provide you with a better experience by continually improving the website to meet user's preferences.

Cookies are small data files that most website operators place on the browser or hard drive of their user's computer. Cookies may gather information about the user's use of the website or enable the website to recognise the user as an existing customer when he returns to the website at a later date.

Most browsers now currently automatically accept cookies by default, although they can be set so that cookies are accepted by clicking an "accept" button, users can change those settings to block some or all cookies.

A "cookie" is the name of a message given by a web server to a web browser and is a small file of letters and numbers. The message is then stored by the web browser in a text file called "cookie.txt" and can be removed from your system at any time. Each time the web browser requests a page from the web server, this message is sent back. The Pharmacy Group uses cookies to collect information from the website, but we will not collect any information about you except in accordance with this privacy policy and as required for the system administration of the Website server.

Consent

Under the 2003 Regulations as originally drafted, the user also had to be given the opportunity to refuse the storage of, or access to, such cookies. However, following the coming into force of the 2011 Regulations, website operators must now obtain the users' consent to the use of cookies (Regulation 6(2)(b), 2003 Regulations as revised by the 2011 Regulations). The 2011 Regulations do not include any detailed provisions on how user consent should be obtained. However, the Information Commissioner has issued guidance on the practical steps providers can take to comply with the new obligations. For more information about ways to obtain user consent, see Practice note, Complying with the new cookie regime: practical steps

If a user accepts cookies from the site, it might make sense for the website operator to store that preference (for example, by setting a "cookie acceptance" cookie on the user's browser or hard drive) to avoid the need to obtain consent again when the user next visits the site. The 2003 Regulations allow website operators to make the user's access to certain web pages dependent on his acceptance of cookies. As a matter of good practice, the user should be informed, however, that restrictions on his use of the website apply if he decides to reject cookies.

We use the following categories of cookies:

Necessary cookies. These are cookies that enable the core functionality of our website such as security, network management and accessibility. They enable you to access certain services on the website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website.

Analytical/performance cookies: These cookies collect anonymous information on pages visited. This allows us to recognise and track the number of visitors to see behaviour trends and how visitors navigate the website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the website's functionality, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily. The main way we do this is by using Google Analytics.

Functionality cookies: These cookies are used to recognise you when you return to the website to improve your experience. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).

The above cookies also fall into two categories – session or persistent. Session cookies expire at the end of your browsing session (when you leave the website) and persistent cookies expire at a specified time in the future.

Third Party Cookies

You can block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, please note that if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies), you may not be able to access all or parts of the website.

In some special cases we also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. The following section details which third party cookies you might encounter through this site.

This site uses Google Analytics which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solution on the web for helping us to understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so we can continue to produce engaging content.

For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page.

From time to time we test new features and make subtle changes to the way that the site is delivered. When we are still testing new features these cookies may be used to ensure that you receive a consistent experience whilst on the site whilst ensuring we understand which optimisations our users appreciate the most.

We also use social media buttons and/or plugins on this site that allow you to connect with your social network in various ways. For these to work the following social media sites including; Facebook, Twitter, will set cookies through our site which may be used to enhance your profile on their site or contribute to the data they hold for various purposes outlined in their respective privacy policies.

 

How we protect your data and keep it secure

The Pharmacy Group are committed to doing all that we can to keep your data secure. We have set up systems and processes to prevent unauthorised or unlawful processing and against its accidental loss, destruction or damage

We also make sure that any third parties that we deal with keep all personal data they process on our behalf secure.

Your Rights

You have the right to see any of the information we hold about you. You also have the right to correct any errors in the information we hold about you; please inform us of any changes you would like to be made to your details so that we can keep our records accurate and up to date.

You have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

  • You have the right to know why your personal data is needed, what will happen to it, and how long it will be retained for.
  • You have the right to access your personal data that is known to us.
  • You have the right to supplement, correct, have deleted or blocked your personal data whenever you wish.
  • If you give us your consent to process your data, you have the right to revoke that consent and to have your personal data deleted.
  • Right to transfer your data: you have the right to request all your personal data from the controller and transfer it in its entirety to another controller.
  • Right to object: you may object to the processing of your data. We comply with this, unless there are justified grounds for processing.

Marketing preferences

You have the right to opt-out of receiving any marketing material from us at any time by sending a written request to us, changing your preferences within your user profile or by clicking the unsubscribe link within our communications. Please refer to the contact details at the bottom of this Privacy Policy.

How long your personal information will be kept  

The Pharmacy Group will retain your information for as long as it is needed for the purposes set out in this privacy policy or as otherwise required by law.

We will keep your personal information while you have an account with us or we are providing services to you.

We will retain your personal information:  

  • to respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf;
  • to show that we treated you fairly; and  
  • to keep records required by law.  

We will not retain your personal information for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy.

How to contact us & Further Information

How to make a complaint

If you have a complaint about how we handle your data, we would like to hear from you. We hope we can resolve any query or concern regarding the use of your information. Please email us at office@thepharmacygroup.co.uk or call us on 0113 243 4441.

Should you be unable to resolve your issue directly with us, you are also entitled to complain to the Data Protection Supervisory Authority (Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in the UK). You can find details of how to contact the ICO here. https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/

If you would like to exercise any of the rights set out in this privacy policy, please contact us.

Our contact details:

Company Address

The Pharmacy Group – Head Office

8 Manor Rd

Holbeck

Leeds

LS11 9AH

Telephone

0113 243 4441

Email

office@thepharmacygroup.co.uk

Our Data Protection Officer:

Graeme Gould

Changes to this policy

We may change this privacy policy to continually keep it up to date. In that case, the 'last updated' date at the bottom of this page will also change. Any changes to this privacy policy will apply to you and your data immediately.

You are responsible for reviewing the privacy policy on each occasion that you visit the website, and if you continue to use the website after amendments have been made, then you are deemed to have accepted the amendments.

If these changes affect how your personal data is processed, The Pharmacy Group will take reasonable steps to let you know.

Last Updated: January 2021