Introduction
This privacy policy explains how WAD CARE LTD, a home care and supported living provider registered in the United Kingdom, collects, uses, stores and protects personal information. The policy is kept up to date by WadCare, the developer name behind the shared WadCare home care service. It applies to everyone who visits our website, asks about a care visit, receives support at home or acts as a contact for a client.
We take the handling of personal data seriously. Much of the information we hold relates to health and to the private lives of the people we support, so it deserves more care than ordinary business data. This page sets out plainly what you can expect from us, what we never do with your data, and how to exercise your rights at any time.
We have written everything in everyday language. Where a technical term is unavoidable we explain it nearby, because a policy that nobody can read is a policy that protects nobody.
Who we are
WAD CARE LTD is the organisation responsible for the care services described on this website. Our registered address is 155 Riverstone Way, NORTHAMPTON, NN4 9QW, United Kingdom (GB). You can reach the people who look after your information by writing to that address, by email at guide@wadcare.mom or by telephoning +19708043312.
Where this policy says we, us or our, it means WAD CARE LTD. Where it refers to the WadCare service and its website, that service is operated for the benefit of the same organisation, and your rights are identical whichever name you meet first.
We are a data controller for the personal information described in this policy. Being a controller means we decide how and why your information is used, and we accept full responsibility for keeping that decision safe and lawful.
What personal information we collect
The details we ask for depend on the stage of your relationship with us. We only collect what is genuinely needed, and we never gather information for the sake of it.
- Basic identifiers such as your name, date of birth, home address, telephone number and email address.
- Household and wider family details where you are arranging care for someone else and have permission to act for them.
- GP details and the details of any health or social care professionals already involved in a family situation.
- Demographic information where we need it to deliver care fairly, such as preferred language or accessibility needs.
- Payment and funding details where care is privately arranged or supported by a local authority.
- Sensitive health and care information, which is covered in its own section further down this page.
How information is collected
Information reaches us through honest everyday routes. When you telephone the office, send an email to guide@wadcare.mom or fill in a form on this website, we note the details you choose to share. When a manager visits your home in person to discuss care, the notes made during that meeting form part of your enquiry record.
Once care begins, information is added through the ordinary running of the rota: call-in records, notes left at each visit and the sign-off sheet. Where you or your family provide information through a local authority assessment, a GP or a hospital discharge team, that information may be shared with us so that your care plan is accurate.
On the website itself we keep only small technical logs that are described in the cookies section. We do not buy lists of names and we do not harvest contact details from social media.
Why we use personal information
Every use of your information serves a clear purpose connected to the care you asked us to consider or to deliver. The main reasons are set out here.
- To respond to enquiries and to arrange the free home meeting that begins a new family intake.
- To assess need, write a care plan, and match the right named carer to your household.
- To deliver the care described in the plan, including medication prompts and the daily notes.
- To keep the rota accurate and to arrange cover when a regular carer is away.
- To bill correctly for private care and to meet the reporting duties we owe to local authorities.
- To meet our legal obligations to quality bodies, the Care Quality Commission and the law.
- To contact you about future care or about changes that affect your existing arrangement.
The legal basis for our processing
Under the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018, every use of personal data must rest on a lawful basis. The bases we most often rely on are performance of a contract, our legitimate interests, compliance with a legal obligation, and vital interests in an emergency.
Where we collect details so we can begin the work of arranging care, the basis is normally the steps you asked us to take before entering a contract. Once care is running, that basis becomes performance of the care contract itself. Where we keep records only because the law or the quality regulator expects us to, the basis is a legal obligation. In an urgent situation where a person cannot give consent but needs protection, the basis is vital interest and we act with the minimum necessary.
Ordinary contact and marketing records may be held on the basis of our legitimate interest in running the service well and staying in touch with families who asked to remain so. We always balance that interest against your privacy and we stop processing if the balance ever falls your way instead.
When we share information
We treat your information as yours. It is shared only when there is a genuine reason, and only with people who are bound to use it carefully. Reasonable examples include the following.
- Your named carer and our office team, so that the right person gives care at the right time.
- Your GP, pharmacist or hospital team when it is needed for safe and continuing care.
- The local authority funding your care, so that services are agreed and accounted for.
- The Care Quality Commission and other statutory bodies where they inspect or investigate.
- Our insurers and professional advisers, where required to protect us and you.
- Emergency services in an emergency where information could save life or prevent harm.
We never sell your personal data. We never trade it with marketing companies and we never make it available for advertising. Any sharing beyond those described here would happen only with your clear consent or where the law compels it, and in those rare cases we would explain it to you at the time.
Health and special category data
Health information, along with certain other sensitive detail such as racial or ethnic origin, is treated by law as special category data. Because the very purpose of our service is to support health and daily living, we hold a great deal of it, and we hold it with extra care.
Our legal basis for handling special category data is the provision of health and social care, which the law recognises as a strong and legitimate ground. It allows us to record a diagnosis, note the medicines in the caddy and describe the help a person needs without asking for fresh consent every single time care is given.
That lawful foundation is not an excuse to be careless. Only those who need to see health information may see it. Notes are written with restraint, sensitive conversations take place in private, and records are encrypted where they live on a device. Where there is any doubt about our authority to use special category data, we ask for explicit consent and seek it in plain writing and in conversation.
How we keep information secure
Good people in care rely on sound systems behind them. We apply a set of protections that we regard as essential rather than impressive.
- Access is limited to the staff who need it, and every person is trained to handle records discreetly.
- Digital records are held on password protected systems with restricted accounts and up to date security.
- Paper notes are stored in locked cabinets in our office and moved only in sealed folders.
- Devices are encrypted, screens lock quickly, and files are removed when they are no longer needed.
- Visitors to our office are never left alone with care records, and records are never discussed where others can hear.
Security is not a single lock but a habit. We review our arrangements regularly and treat the protection of personal data as part of good caring, not as a separate admin chore.
How long information is kept
We keep personal information only for as long as there is a proper reason to hold it. The strongest reasons are legal: the regulators that oversee care require care records to be kept for a set period after the end of care, because those records may be needed to defend quality or to answer a future enquiry.
Our rules are straightforward. Enquiries that do not lead to care are reviewed and erased promptly unless you ask us to stay in touch. Day-to-day care records are kept for the period required by the CQC and by our professional insurers, and then destroyed securely. Payment and tax records are kept for the length demanded by HMRC for accounting purposes. Website technical logs are deleted after a short window.
When we delete information we do so securely, by shredding paper and by permanently wiping digital files so they cannot be rebuilt from fragments.
Care records that live in the home
Some records rightly sit close to the person they describe. The daily notes held at the property during an active rota are the clearest example, because they help a covering carer continue safely on a day when the regular carer is unavailable.
You are welcome to look at the notes kept about you or about the person you care for. We are glad to talk them through and to correct anything written in error. These home records follow the same confidentiality rules as everything kept in the office, and they are collected and secured as soon as an arrangement ends.
Nothing about handing notes visibly into a home lowers the standard we set ourselves. Privacy is about who can see information and why, not simply about where it happens to sit.
Marketing and service messages
We send two different kinds of message and it is fair to separate them. Service messages are the ones you need: a confirmation that a visit has been arranged, a note that your named carer is off sick, or a reminder that a care plan review is due. These are necessary to the service we provide and are sent because they matter to your care.
Marketing messages are different. They exist to tell you about future services or useful news, and we send them only to people who have agreed to receive them or who have a reasonable connection to us that we have balanced fairly. Every marketing message carries a simple way to stop receiving more.
You can change your preferences at any time by writing to guide@wadcare.mom or calling +19708043312. Unsubscribing from marketing never affects the essential messages your care depends on.
Your rights under the UK GDPR
The law gives you clear rights over your personal information, and none of them are complicated to ask for. Your main rights are listed here.
- The right to be informed about how your data is used, which is what this policy does.
- The right of access, to see a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- The right to rectification, to correct anything that is wrong or out of date.
- The right to erasure, sometimes called the right to be forgotten, where it lawfully applies.
- The right to restrict processing, to ask us to pause certain uses while a question is resolved.
- The right to data portability, to move your data to another provider in a reusable form where it applies.
- The right to object, including to processing based on legitimate interests or for marketing.
To exercise any of these rights, contact our team by writing to 155 Riverstone Way, NORTHAMPTON, NN4 9QW, by email at guide@wadcare.mom or by phone on +19708043312. We will respond within one calendar month as the law requires, and we will never charge you simply for asking about your own data.
We may ask for proof of your identity before acting, so that we do not hand your information to anyone who happens to ask for it. That is a protection rather than a barrier.
Privacy for children
WadCare is a service for adults, so we do not deliberately collect personal information from children under the age of 16. If a child accidentally sends us personal data through the website, we will remove it as soon as we notice and will not use it for anything.
Where a younger family member, son or daughter of an adult client, is involved in messages about care, we may hold their contact details at the express request of the adult concerned, and we treat those details with the same care as any other information we hold. The adult giving us the details stays in control and can ask us to forget them at any time.
If you believe a child has provided information to us, please let us know at guide@wadcare.mom and we will act promptly and thoroughly.
Third party services we rely on
Running a care service and a website means using a small number of outside services, each of which receives only the minimum information it needs. Examples include our website hosting and email provider, the system that holds your secure messages, and the software we use to schedule visits and keep notes.
Each of these providers is chosen with care, asked to uphold the same standards we set ourselves and kept to written agreements that restrict what they may do with the data. We review these arrangements and expect each provider to treat your information as confidential even when we do not name them in an everyday letter.
We will never give a third party the freedom to sell your details or to use them for their own unrelated marketing. Where a provider sits outside the United Kingdom we apply the rules described in the next section.
Transfers of data outside the United Kingdom
Your care records belong in this country and are kept in the United Kingdom wherever we can reasonably manage that. Some technical providers, such as those running secure software and email, may process information through servers located in other countries as part of the normal working of the internet.
Before any such transfer happens we satisfy ourselves that the law in that country offers protection equivalent to what you enjoy at home, or that another lawful safeguard is in place such as appropriate contractual clauses. The effect is the same either way: your data receives the same standard of care no matter where the server happens to sit.
If you would like a copy of the safeguards relied upon for any particular transfer, we will gladly share them on request through guide@wadcare.mom.
Changes to this policy
Privacy law and good practice move, and so will this policy. When we make a significant change we will update the date at the top of this page and, where you are an active client, let you know directly so the change does not arrive without warning.
Minor wording clarifications may happen without a personal message. For that reason we encourage anyone who values precision to glance at this page occasionally. The principles at the heart of the policy, openness, restraint, security and respect, will not change even as the wording evolves.
If you have questions about a particular change, we would rather answer them than have you worry silently. Write to us at any time and we will explain the background plainly.
Contact and complaints
Questions about this policy or about your personal information are always welcome. Reach our data and privacy team by writing to WAD CARE LTD, 155 Riverstone Way, NORTHAMPTON, NN4 9QW, United Kingdom (GB), by email to guide@wadcare.mom, or by telephone on +19708043312 during our working hours.
If you believe we have handled your data incorrectly, we want to hear about it first so we can put things right. You can also raise a concern with the Information Commissioner, the independent authority that supervises data protection in the United Kingdom. Their office is the best port of call if you feel your concern has not been resolved, and full contact details are on their website.
We aim to reply to every enquiry within a few working days and to resolve genuine problems without fuss. Data protection is not a wall between you and good care; it is part of the trust that makes good care possible.