Best Care Agency Ltd respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information.

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, share and protect personal information when you:

• Visit our website.
• Submit a website form.
• Contact us by telephone, email, SMS or live chat.
• Make an enquiry about care or healthcare staffing services.
• Apply for a job, placement or recruitment opportunity.
• Book an appointment or consultation.
• Communicate or enter into a relationship with our organisation.

This Privacy Policy should be read together with our Cookie Policy and any additional privacy information provided when we collect personal information from you.

1. Who we are

Best Care Agency Ltd is responsible for deciding how and why your personal information is used. Under UK data protection law, we are the data controller.

Questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle personal information can be sent to Faith Matagaro using the contact information above.

2. Personal information we collect

The personal information we collect depends on how you interact with us and the service you request.

Website visitors and general enquiries

We may collect:

• Your first and last name.
• Your telephone number.
• Your email address.
• Your postal address, where relevant.
• Your preferred contact method.
• The contents of your enquiry or message.
• Information submitted through our forms or chatbot.
• Appointment or consultation details.
• Records of telephone calls, emails, text messages and chat conversations.
• Information about the care, recruitment or staffing service in which you are interested.
• Information about how you heard about Best Care Agency Ltd.
• Your communication and marketing preferences.

Technical and website information

When you visit our website, we may collect:

• Your IP address.
• Browser type and version.
• Device type and operating system.
• Approximate location based on technical information.
• Pages visited and actions taken on the website.
• Referral source.
• Date and time of visits.
• Cookie preferences and consent records.
• Website security and diagnostic information.

Non-essential analytics information will only be collected where the required cookie permission has been provided.

Care-service enquiries

Where relevant and necessary to understand an enquiry or assess a request for support, we may collect:

• Information about care and support requirements.
• Mobility, accessibility or communication requirements.
• Health or medical information relevant to the enquiry.
• Information about disabilities or support needs.
• Relevant medication information.
• Safeguarding information.
• Service location and scheduling information.
• Emergency contact information.
• Information about family members, carers, representatives or advocates.
• Funding, local authority or commissioning information where relevant.

Recruitment and job applications

When you apply to work with us, we may collect:

• Your name and contact details.
• Your CV and covering letter.
• Employment and educational history.
• Skills, qualifications and training records.
• Professional registrations and licences.
• Work availability and preferred assignments.
• Interview notes and assessment results.
• References and referee contact details.
• Identity and right-to-work information.
• Information needed to consider reasonable workplace adjustments.
• Disclosure and Barring Service information where relevant, legally permitted and necessary for the role.
• Criminal-offence information where legally permitted and necessary for the role.
• Driving licence information where driving is relevant to the position.

3. How we collect personal information

We may collect personal information directly from you when you:

• Complete a website form.
• Use our website chatbot.
• Send us an email or text message.
• Call us.
• Book an appointment.
• Apply for a vacancy.
• Provide information during an interview or assessment.
• Communicate with our staff.
• Enter into a service or business relationship with us.

We may also receive personal information from:

• Your family member, carer or authorised representative.
• Healthcare and support professionals.
• Local authorities or commissioning organisations.
• Business clients requesting healthcare staff.
• Recruitment agencies.
• Referees and previous employers.
• Professional regulators.
• Lawful employment-screening providers.
• Website, advertising and analytics providers.
• Publicly available professional sources.

When another person provides information about you, they should have your permission, appropriate authority or another lawful reason to provide it.

4. How we use personal information

We may use personal information to:

• Receive and respond to enquiries.
• Contact you about an enquiry or application.
• Understand your care or staffing requirements.
• Assess whether we can provide an appropriate service.
• Arrange consultations, assessments and appointments.
• Prepare quotations, proposals or service agreements.
• Provide and manage agreed services.
• Manage client, candidate and business relationships.
• Process and assess job applications.
• Verify qualifications, references and eligibility.
• Complete appropriate employment checks.
• Maintain accurate business and service records.
• Send appointment reminders and service notifications.
• Manage complaints, feedback and incidents.
• Respond to safeguarding concerns.
• Improve our website, communications and services.
• Protect our website and systems.
• Detect or prevent fraud, misuse and unauthorised access.
• Meet legal, regulatory, tax and contractual obligations.
• Establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
• Send marketing communications where you have consented or where the law otherwise allows us to do so.

We will not use your personal information for an incompatible purpose unless the law permits or requires us to do so.

5. Our lawful bases

We must have a lawful reason for using personal information. The lawful basis depends on the circumstances and purpose of the processing.

Contract and pre-contractual steps

We may use personal information when necessary to:

• Respond to a request for a service.
• Prepare a quotation or service proposal.
• Take steps before entering into a contract.
• Provide services under an agreement.
• Process a job application.
• Manage a contract with a client, worker or supplier.

Legal obligation

We may process information where necessary to comply with legal obligations relating to:

• Employment and right-to-work requirements.
• Taxation and accounting.
• Health and safety.
• Safeguarding.
• Record keeping.
• Regulatory reporting.
• Court orders or lawful authority requests.

Legitimate interests

We may rely on legitimate interests where the processing is necessary for our organisation and does not unfairly override your interests, rights or freedoms.

These interests may include:

• Responding to general enquiries.
• Managing client and business relationships.
• Operating and improving our services.
• Maintaining appropriate business records.
• Protecting our staff, clients and systems.
• Preventing fraud and misuse.
• Managing complaints and legal claims.
• Sending appropriate business-to-business communications where permitted.

Consent

We may rely on consent for activities such as:

• Non-essential analytics cookies.
• Marketing cookies.
• Certain email or SMS marketing communications.
• Optional information or processing activities.

Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time. Withdrawal will not affect processing that took place before consent was withdrawn.

Vital interests

In rare emergency circumstances, we may process information where necessary to protect a person’s life.

6. Health and other sensitive information

Information about physical or mental health, disabilities, racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs and certain other personal characteristics is treated as special-category personal data under UK data protection law.

Where we need to process special-category information, we will only do so when:

• There is a lawful basis for processing the information.
• An additional special-category processing condition applies.
• The information is necessary and proportionate.
• Appropriate safeguards are in place.

Depending on the circumstances, we may process this information because it is necessary for:

• Employment and social-protection obligations.
• The provision or management of health or social care.
• Safeguarding and protecting individuals from harm.
• Establishing, exercising or defending legal claims.
• Protecting vital interests in an emergency.
• A substantial public-interest purpose supported by applicable law.
• A purpose for which you have provided explicit consent, where explicit consent is appropriate.

Access to sensitive information is limited to people who need it for an authorised purpose.

7. Recruitment information

Information submitted during recruitment may be used to:

• Receive and review your application.
• Communicate with you about the recruitment process.
• Arrange and conduct interviews.
• Assess your qualifications, experience and suitability.
• Obtain references.
• Verify your identity and right to work.
• Complete appropriate background checks.
• Consider reasonable adjustments.
• Make and record recruitment decisions.

Certain information may be required for us to process your application. If you do not provide required information, we may be unable to continue with your application.

Submitting an application does not guarantee employment, placement or assignment.

Information about successful applicants may be transferred to the appropriate employee, worker or contractor record.

8. Workflow automation and artificial intelligence

We may use customer relationship management systems, workflow automation and AI-supported tools to help our team:

• Record and organise enquiries.
• Send enquiry acknowledgements.
• Route messages to the appropriate team member.
• Create internal notifications and follow-up tasks.
• Prepare internal summaries.
• Categorise enquiries.
• Manage appointments and reminders.
• Improve administrative efficiency.
• Support the preparation of customer-service responses.

Automated tools are intended to support our team and do not replace appropriate human oversight.

We do not intend to make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects concerning care eligibility, service access or recruitment solely through automated processing without appropriate human involvement.

9. Marketing communications

We may send news, vacancy information, service updates or marketing communications where:

• You have provided your consent.
• The law otherwise permits us to contact you.
• The communication is relevant to a business contact and our legitimate interests apply.

You may unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by:

• Using the unsubscribe link in an email.
• Replying STOP where that option is available.
• Emailing [email protected] .
• Asking a member of our team to update your preferences.

Messages that are necessary to manage an existing enquiry, appointment, application, service or contract are not normally considered marketing.

We may keep limited information on a suppression list so that we continue to respect an unsubscribe request.

10. Cookies and website analytics

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies.

Strictly necessary cookies may be used to support important website functions, security, forms and cookie-preference management.

Optional analytics and marketing cookies will only operate after the appropriate permission has been provided through our cookie banner.

Where Google Analytics is enabled with your permission, it may collect information including:

• Pages viewed.
• Time spent on the website.
• Website interactions.
• Browser and device information.
• Approximate geographical information.
• Referral source.

You can accept, reject or manage optional cookies using our cookie consent tool.

For further information, please read our Cookie Policy.

11. Who we may share information with

Where necessary and lawful, we may share personal information with:

• Employees, authorised workers and contractors of Best Care Agency Ltd.
• Clients requesting healthcare or support staff.
• Healthcare and support professionals.
• Local authorities and commissioning organisations.
• Safeguarding bodies.
• Professional regulators.
• Recruitment, referencing and screening providers.
• Previous employers and referees.
• Accountants, insurers and professional advisers.
• IT, website-hosting and cybersecurity providers.
• CRM and workflow-automation providers.
• Email, telephone and SMS providers.
• Website-form, chatbot and booking-system providers.
• Cloud-storage and document-management providers.
• Analytics providers where permission has been provided.
• Payment providers where applicable.
• Courts, government authorities, law-enforcement bodies or regulators where required or permitted by law.
• Other parties where you have authorised the disclosure.

Service providers acting on our behalf may only use personal information for authorised purposes and in accordance with applicable contractual and data-protection requirements.

We do not sell personal information.

12. Technology service providers

We use third-party systems to operate our website and manage enquiries, communications and workflows. These may include:

The providers we use may change as our systems and services are improved. We take reasonable steps to consider privacy, security, confidentiality and contractual protections when selecting providers.

13. International transfers

Some technology and cloud-service providers may store or process personal information outside the United Kingdom.

Where personal information is transferred internationally, we will take appropriate steps required by UK data-protection law. These steps may include:

• Relying on UK adequacy regulations.
• Using approved contractual safeguards.
• Using the UK International Data Transfer Agreement.
• Using the UK Addendum to approved standard contractual clauses.
• Completing an appropriate transfer-risk assessment.
• Using another lawful international-transfer mechanism.

You may contact us for further information about the safeguards applying to a particular international transfer.

14. How long we keep personal information

We keep personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected and to meet applicable legal, contractual, employment, safeguarding, tax and reporting requirements.

When deciding how long information should be kept, we consider:

• The purpose for which the information was collected.
• The type and sensitivity of the information.
• The nature of our relationship with the individual.
• Applicable legal and contractual requirements.
• Safeguarding and employment-record requirements.
• The possibility of a complaint, dispute or legal claim.
• Whether the information can be securely deleted or anonymised.

When information is no longer required, we will securely delete, destroy or anonymise it.

15. Information security

We use reasonable organisational and technical measures designed to protect personal information from:

• Unauthorised access.
• Accidental loss.
• Unlawful disclosure.
• Alteration.
• Misuse.
• Destruction.

Our measures may include:

• Access controls and user permissions.
• Password and authentication controls.
• Staff confidentiality requirements.
• Secure cloud-based systems.
• Data backups and recovery procedures.
• Device and network protection.
• Staff awareness and training.
• Supplier and service-provider checks.
• Incident-response procedures.

No electronic or internet-based system can be guaranteed to be completely secure. If a personal-data breach occurs, we will assess it and make any notifications required by law.

16. Your data-protection rights

Depending on the circumstances and the lawful basis being used, you may have the right to:

• Request access to your personal information.
• Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information.
• Request deletion of your personal information.
• Request restriction of processing.
• Object to certain uses of your personal information.
• Object to direct marketing at any time.
• Receive certain information in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.
• Request that certain information be transferred to another organisation.
• Withdraw consent where we rely on consent.
• Raise concerns about certain automated decision-making.

Data-protection rights are not absolute. Legal exemptions may apply, and there may be situations in which we must retain or continue using certain information.

To exercise a right, contact:

We may request information needed to verify your identity and understand the scope of your request.

17. Complaints

Please contact us first if you have concerns about how we use your personal information. We will review the concern and try to resolve it.

You also have the right to make a complaint to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, which is the UK supervisory authority for data protection.

Current complaint and contact information is available through the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

18. Children’s information

Our public website and general marketing are not intended to collect personal information directly from children without appropriate involvement from a parent, guardian, representative or relevant professional.

Where information concerning a child is necessary for an enquiry or service, we will seek to handle it lawfully, fairly and with appropriate safeguards. We will take account of:

• The child’s age and understanding.
• The child’s best interests.
• The authority of the person providing the information.
• The sensitivity of the information.
• The purpose for which the information is required.

19. Links to external websites

Our website may contain links to websites, social-media pages or services operated by other organisations.

We are not responsible for the content, security or privacy practices of external websites. You should read the privacy notice of the relevant organisation before providing personal information.

20. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy when:

• Our services or operations change.
• We introduce new technology or service providers.
• Our information-processing practices change.
• Legal or regulatory requirements change.

The current version will be published on this page and identified by the “Last updated” date.

Where a change significantly affects how we use personal information, we may provide an additional notice where appropriate.

21. Contact us

For questions, requests or concerns relating to this Privacy Policy or the use of your personal information, contact: