Website privacy notice

This notice explains how Ariel Healthcare uses information you give us through this website. It adds to our main practice privacy notice, which covers your health records.

Ariel Healthcare is the data controller for this website.

Online forms

You can use our online forms to order repeat prescriptions, register as a carer, join our Patient Participation Group, give feedback or make a complaint. We ask only for what we need to deal with your request.

We use the information to:

• deal with your request, for example issuing your prescription or recording that you are a carer
• respond to your complaint, as NHS complaints regulations require
• run our Patient Participation Group and check it reflects our patients
• report Friends and Family Test results to NHS England and improve our services (feedback is anonymous unless you choose to include your details)

We do this to provide health care and as part of our public duties as an NHS GP practice (UK GDPR Articles 6(1)(e) and 9(2)(h), and for complaints Article 6(1)(c)). We do not rely on your consent, and we do not use your information for marketing.

Who can see it

Your answers are sent to named practice staff at secure NHS email addresses (nhs.net) and kept in the website's secure system, where only staff who need them can read them. Every time a member of staff opens a response, it is recorded. We copy what we need into your medical record, complaints file, carers register or PPG list. We do not share your answers with anyone outside the practice except the companies below, which only store or carry them for us.

How long we keep it

The website deletes your answers automatically after 90 days. Information we have copied into your medical record or complaints file is kept for as long as the NHS Records Management Code of Practice requires.

Keeping it safe

• Forms are sent over an encrypted connection and your answers are stored encrypted.
• Emails to our staff are sent over an encrypted connection and only to NHS email addresses.
• Staff sign in with a password and a second check (two-factor sign-in).

Email receipts

If you give your email address on a form, we may email you a receipt with your reference number and what happens next. The receipt does not include your answers or any medical information. It comes from an address that is not monitored, so please do not reply to it.

Online appointment requests

When you contact us using our online form, your answers are sent to the practice and added to your medical record. The form is provided by Healthtech-1, who process your information on our behalf under a written agreement. You can read Healthtech-1's privacy policy.

The form uses artificial intelligence to help sort requests and assess urgency. It does not make decisions about your care on its own, and a member of our team reviews every request.

Companies that help us run the website

• IONOS hosts the website on servers in the UK.
• StackMail sends the notification emails to our staff and email receipts to patients.
• Cloudflare directs visitors to our website address. It does not see the pages you visit or your form answers.

Each works under a contract that only lets them use the information to provide their service to us.

Google Translate

If you select Choose a language at the bottom of a page, the page text is sent to Google to be translated and Google may set cookies. Nothing is sent to Google unless you choose to use it, and your form answers are never sent. Read Google's privacy policy.

Cookies and visit counts

We only use cookies the website needs to work. We count how many times each page is viewed, and what people search for, so we can improve the website. These counts do not include your IP address or anything else that identifies you. If you answer "Was this page helpful?", we count your answer for that page. Anything you type in the box is kept for 90 days to help us improve the website, so please do not include personal or medical details. Read our cookies policy.

Like all websites, our server records basic technical details of each visit (IP address, page and time) to keep the website secure. These records are deleted after 14 days.

Your rights

You can ask to see the information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or object to how we use it. Some rights are limited for health records. To make a request, contact the practice and quote your form reference number if you have one.

To contact our Data Protection Officer, email somicb.arielhealthcare@nhs.net and mark your email "For the Data Protection Officer".

If you are unhappy with how we have used your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.

This notice was last updated on 19 October 2026.