Privacy and cookies

Privacy and cookies

Last updated: November 2026

Smile Rooms is a group of private dental practices: Reading Smiles, Smile Rooms Windsor, Smile Rooms Kingston, Smile Rooms Wokingham, Smile Rooms Milton Keynes, Smile Rooms Glasgow and Smile Rooms Aylesbury. This notice explains how we use your personal information when you visit www.smile-rooms.co.uk, contact us, respond to our adverts or become a patient at any of our practices.

Privacy notice

Our practices aim to meet the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018, the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the guidelines on the Information Commissioner’s website as well as our professional guidelines and requirements.

The data controller is Dr Hanel Nathwani, who is also the Information Governance Lead.

This Privacy Notice is available on our website at www.smile-rooms.co.uk, at reception at any of our practices, or by calling the practice you attend (contact details are listed below).

You will be asked to provide personal information when joining a practice. The purpose of us processing this data is to provide optimum health care to you.

The categories of data we process are:

  • Personal data for the purposes of staff and self-employed team member management
  • Personal data for the purposes of direct mail, email, text or marketing
  • Special category data including health records for the purposes of the delivery of health care
  • Special category data including health records and details of criminal record checks for managing employees and contracted team members

We never pass your personal details to a third party unless we have a contract for them to process data on our behalf and will otherwise keep it confidential. If we intend to refer a patient to another practitioner or to secondary care such as a hospital we will gain the individual’s permission before the referral is made and the personal data is shared.

Personal data is obtained when a patient joins a practice, when a patient is referred to a practice, when you submit an enquiry, booking or job application form on our website, and when you subscribe to an email list.

The lawful basis for processing special category data such as patients’ and employees’ health data is:

  • Processing is necessary for the purposes of preventative or occupational medicine, for assessing the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or management of health or social care systems and services on the basis of law or a contract with a health professional

The lawful basis of processing personal data such as name, address, email or phone number is:

  • Consent of the data subject
  • Processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with the data subject or to take steps to enter into a contract

The retention period for special data in patient records is a minimum of 10 years and may be longer for complex records in order to meet our legal requirements.

The retention period for staff records is 6 years. The retention period for other personal data is 2 years after it was last processed. Details of other retention periods are available in the Record Retention procedure available from the practice.

You have the following personal data rights:

  • The right to be informed
  • The right of access
  • The right to rectification
  • The right to erasure (clinical records must be retained for a certain time period)
  • The right to restrict processing
  • The right to data portability
  • The right to object

Further details of these rights can be seen in our Information Governance Procedures or at the Information Commissioner’s website. Here are some practical examples of your rights:

  • If you are a patient of one of our practices you have the right to withdraw consent for important notifications, newsletters, surveys or marketing. You can inform us to correct errors in your personal details or withdraw consent from communication methods such as telephone, email or text. You have the right to obtain a free copy of your patient records within one month.
  • If you are not a patient of one of our practices you have the right to withdraw consent for processing personal data, to have a free copy of it within one month, to correct errors in it or to ask us to delete it. You can also withdraw consent from communication methods such as telephone, email or text.

We have carried out a Privacy Impact Assessment and you can request a copy using the details below. The details of how we ensure security of personal data are in our Security Risk Assessment and Information Governance Procedures.

Comments, suggestions and complaints

Please contact Dr Hanel Nathwani for a comment, suggestion or a complaint about your data processing by calling, writing to or visiting the practice you attend. We take complaints very seriously.

  • Reading Smiles – 1st Floor, 6 Broad Street, Reading, RG1 2BH – 0118 957 6600
  • Smile Rooms Windsor – 44 Peascod Street, Windsor, SL4 1DE – 01753 331 081
  • Smile Rooms Kingston – 10 High Street, Hampton Wick, KT1 4DB – 020 8977 7002
  • Smile Rooms Wokingham – 3 Old Row Court, Rose Street, Wokingham, RG40 1XZ – 0118 321 3000
  • Smile Rooms Milton Keynes – Fortuna House, Milton Keynes, MK9 2PQ – 01908 731 705
  • Smile Rooms Glasgow – 13 Renfield Street, Glasgow, G2 5AH – 0141 237 2080
  • Smile Rooms Aylesbury – 2 Nimrod Street, Aylesbury, HP18 1BB – 01296 873 568

If you are unhappy with our response or if you need any advice you should contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Their telephone number is 0303 123 1113, and you can also chat online with an advisor at ico.org.uk. The ICO can investigate your claim and take action against anyone who’s misused personal data. You can also visit their website for information on how to make a data protection complaint.

You can also use these contact details to request copies of the following practice policies or procedures:

  • Data Protection and Information Security Policy, Consent Policy
  • Privacy Impact Assessment, Information Governance Procedures

Cookies

As is common practice with almost all professional websites, this site uses cookies, which are tiny files that are downloaded to your computer, to improve your experience. This section describes what information they gather, how we use it and why we sometimes need to store these cookies. It also explains how you can prevent these cookies from being stored, however this may downgrade or ‘break’ certain elements of the site’s functionality.

Essential cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Analytics cookies

This site uses Google Analytics cookies, one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solutions on the web. These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. For more information see the official Google Analytics page (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245).

Advertising and social media cookies

We advertise on platforms including Google, Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and TikTok. These advertising partners may set cookies or use pixels (small pieces of code) through our site, such as the Meta Pixel and TikTok Pixel, so that we can measure how well our adverts work and show more relevant adverts to people who have visited our website. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

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, social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube 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.

Session and persistent cookies

A ‘session’ cookie is allocated to your device only for the duration of your visit to our website and expires when you close your browser or complete a task (such as completing a form). A ‘persistent’ cookie remains on your device for a period of time set for each cookie and allows us to collect data on behaviours such as how many times you visited a page.

How to refuse or opt out of cookies

A cookie banner is shown on your first visit, where you can accept cookies or choose “View preferences” to switch analytics and marketing cookies on or off. You can also block or delete cookies at any time in your browser settings:

  • Google Chrome – Settings › Privacy and security › Third-party cookies
  • Safari (Mac, iPhone and iPad) – Settings › Safari › Privacy
  • Microsoft Edge – Settings › Cookies and site permissions
  • Firefox – Settings › Privacy & Security › Cookies and Site Data
  • Android – Chrome › Settings › Site settings › Cookies

If you choose to decline cookies, some of the interactive features of our website may not be available to you.