Privacy notice

Who we are

Widegate House Dental Practice is a trading name of Widegate Dental Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 16597931. The practice is at 26 Widegate Street, London E1 7HP, and our registered office is 334–336 Goswell Road, London EC1V 7RP.

Widegate Dental Ltd is the data controller for the personal information described in this notice. This means we decide how and why it is used, and we are responsible for looking after it. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) under registration number ZB951385.

If you have a question about your information, please contact our Data Protection Lead at info@widegatedental.com, call or WhatsApp 07497 573 936, or write to the Data Protection Lead, Widegate House Dental Practice, 26 Widegate Street, London E1 7HP.

The information we hold

Your details. Your name, date of birth, address, phone number, email address, emergency contact, and the name of your GP.

Your health and dental care. Your medical history, medicines and allergies, dental history, clinical notes, X-rays and 3D (CBCT) scans, digital scans of your teeth, clinical photographs, treatment plans, consent forms, and letters to and from other clinicians. Health information is special category data, and the law gives it extra protection.

Payments. The fees you are quoted and pay, payment records and, if you apply for finance, whether the application was approved. Card payments are processed by our card payment provider.

Communications. Emails, WhatsApp messages and letters between us, notes of phone calls, and recordings of phone calls to and from the practice.

CCTV. Images recorded by the security cameras at the practice.

Website use. Information collected when you use this website, as described in our cookie policy.

Where it comes from

Most of the information we hold comes from you: from the forms you complete, your appointments, online booking, phone calls, emails and messages.

We may also receive information from a dentist or doctor who refers you to us, from your GP or previous dentist if you ask them to send us your records, from a parent or guardian if you are under 16, and from a finance provider about the outcome of an application you make.

We need your contact details and an up-to-date medical history to treat you safely. If you do not give us this information, we may not be able to provide some or all of your treatment.

How we use it, and our legal basis

Data protection law requires us to have a lawful basis for each way we use your information, and an additional condition when we use health information.

To provide your dental care. This covers your assessment, treatment, aftercare, check-up reminders and recalls. We do this to carry out our agreement to provide your care (contract), and for health care purposes under Article 9(2)(h) of the UK GDPR and Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018. Everyone involved in your care is bound by a duty of confidentiality.

To meet our legal and regulatory duties. This includes keeping clinical records, radiation safety, infection control, regulation by the Care Quality Commission and the General Dental Council, and tax and accounting rules. Our basis is legal obligation, together with the health care condition above and, where relevant, public health.

To run our appointments and accounts. We use your contact details to arrange, confirm and remind you of appointments, take payments and keep our accounts. Our basis is contract and our legitimate interest in running the practice efficiently.

To answer enquiries, handle complaints and deal with legal claims. Our basis is our legitimate interests and, for health information, establishing or defending legal claims.

To check and improve the quality of care. We carry out clinical audits and ask for feedback. Our basis is our legitimate interest in providing safe, high-quality care, and the health care condition above.

Call recording. We record phone calls to and from the practice for training and quality, to keep an accurate record of what was agreed, and to help keep our team safe. Our basis is our legitimate interests.

CCTV. We use CCTV to keep patients, our team and the premises safe and to prevent and detect crime. Our basis is our legitimate interests.

News and offers. We will only send you marketing, such as newsletters or offers, if you have agreed to receive it, and you can opt out at any time. Reminders about your own care are not marketing.

Photographs for teaching or publicity. We will never use your clinical photographs, or any image in which you could be identified, for teaching, social media, our website or other publicity without your separate written consent. You can withdraw that consent at any time for future use.

We do not sell your information, and we do not make decisions about you by automated means alone.

Who we share it with

We only share the information that is needed, and only with people who have a good reason to have it.

Others involved in your care. Clinicians in our team, including those who also work at our sister practices, Sardinia House in Holborn and Bellevue Dental in Wandsworth, if you are seen there; specialists, hospitals or other dentists you are referred to; and your GP or other health professionals where it is relevant to your care.

Dental laboratories and manufacturers. Laboratories that make crowns, veneers, dentures and appliances, and Align Technology when you have Invisalign® treatment or Vivera™ retainers. They receive the scans, photographs and prescription needed to make your treatment.

Our suppliers. Companies that provide services to us and handle information only on our instructions, such as our practice management software, online booking, secure email and messaging, appointment reminders, telephone and CCTV systems, IT support, payment processing, and professional advisers such as accountants, lawyers, insurers and our dental indemnity provider.

Finance providers. If you choose to apply for finance, we share the details needed for your application.

Regulators and authorities. The Care Quality Commission, the General Dental Council, public health bodies, the police or the courts, but only where the law requires or allows it.

Others you ask us to share with. For example, your insurer or a new dentist, when you instruct us to.

Transfers outside the UK

Some of our suppliers, including Align Technology and some IT and cloud providers, may store or process information outside the UK. Where they do, we make sure your information is protected, for example by UK adequacy regulations or approved contract terms such as the International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.

How long we keep it

Dental records, including X-rays, scans and photographs, are kept for at least 11 years after your last treatment. For children, we keep them until their 25th birthday or for 11 years after their last treatment, whichever is longer. This follows NHS records management guidance and the advice of dental defence organisations.

Financial records are kept for 6 years after the end of the financial year they relate to, as required for tax purposes.

Call recordings and CCTV footage are kept for a short period and then deleted automatically, unless we need them to look into an incident, complaint or claim.

Enquiries from people who do not become patients are kept only as long as we need to respond and follow up. Marketing preferences are kept until you change them.

When information is no longer needed, it is securely deleted or destroyed.

How we protect it

We use secure systems with access controls and encryption, and our team is trained in confidentiality and data protection. Access to your records is limited to the people who need it to care for you or run the practice. Any paper records are stored securely.

Your rights

Access. You can ask for a copy of the information we hold about you. This is usually free.

Correction. You can ask us to correct information that is wrong or incomplete.

Erasure. You can ask us to delete your information. We may not be able to delete clinical records, because we are required to keep them for the periods above.

Restriction and objection. You can ask us to limit how we use your information, and you can object to uses based on our legitimate interests. You can object to marketing at any time.

Portability. In some cases you can ask for information you gave us in a format that can be passed to another organisation.

Withdrawing consent. Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. This does not affect anything we did before you withdrew it.

To use any of these rights, contact our Data Protection Lead. We may need to confirm your identity. We will respond within one month, or tell you within that month if we need longer for a complex request.

Children. A parent or guardian with parental responsibility can usually make requests for a child. Young people who understand their rights can make requests themselves.

Messages and online booking

When you book online, you use our booking provider’s system, which passes your booking details to us. If you message us on WhatsApp, Meta’s privacy policy also applies to that service. Please keep detailed health information for your appointment or a phone call if you prefer.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please contact our Data Protection Lead first. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and look into it without undue delay.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this notice

We review this notice regularly and will update it when the way we use information changes. It was last updated in October 2026.