Privacy Policy

This page explains what information Oakma collects when you use this website or contact us, why we collect it, and what we do with it. We have written it in plain English and kept it as short as we can without leaving anything important out.

If you become a client of Oakma, we will give you a separate, more detailed privacy notice covering the health and care information we hold about you. Carers we employ also receive a separate workforce privacy notice. This page covers the website, the contact and Arrange Care forms, our phone line, and job applications.

1. Who we are

Oakma is a UK-based home care provider operating in Telford & Wrekin and parts of Shropshire. We are the data controller for the personal information described in this notice.

Our details

Registered office: e-innovation Centre, University of Wolverhampton Campus, Telford, TF2 9FT.

Phone: 01952 288 216

Email for privacy questions: privacy@oakmacare.co.uk

2. What this notice covers

This notice covers:

How we handle information when you browse this website.
How we handle information you give us through our contact form, our Arrange Care form, or our careers application route.
How we handle information you give us if you phone us — including the role of our AI voice agent (see Section 6).
How we handle information about job applicants and prospective clients up to the point of becoming a client.

This notice does not cover:

Your information once you become an Oakma client. You will receive a separate, fuller service privacy notice when we sign your care service agreement.
Your information once you become an Oakma employee. You will receive a separate workforce privacy notice when we offer you a role.
Other websites we link to. We are not responsible for their privacy practices — please read their notices.

3. What information we collect, and why

What we collect	Examples	Why & lawful basis
Contact form / Arrange Care form	Name, phone, email, postcode, free-text description of the care need, who care is for, GDPR consent box state.	To respond to your enquiry, arrange a callback or visit, and record that you contacted us. Lawful basis: legitimate interests (responding to your enquiry) and consent (where you tick the consent box). If your message contains health information about yourself, the lawful basis for that is explicit consent.
Phone calls to 01952 288 216	Audio recording of the call, AI-generated transcript, structured fields the AI agent captures (who is calling, who needs care, postcode, type of help, rough availability, funding route), and any handover notes if you ask to speak to a person.	To take a structured first enquiry, route to a human callback, and quality-check the AI agent. Lawful basis: legitimate interests for the recording and transcription; explicit consent for any health information you share. We tell you the call will be handled by an AI agent at the start of the call and you can ask for a person at any time.
Careers / job applications	Name, contact details, CV, covering message, right-to-work indicator, any information you choose to share about why you want to work with us.	To consider your application and contact you about it. Lawful basis: legitimate interests (assessing your suitability) and, if you proceed to interview, taking steps to enter into an employment contract.
Cookies & analytics	Information about your device, browser, the pages you visit, and how you got here. Set only if you accept cookies via our consent banner.	To understand how the site is used and improve it. Lawful basis: consent. Full detail in our Cookie Policy.
Server logs	IP address, request timestamp, page accessed, response code. Retained briefly for security and abuse prevention.	To keep the website secure and diagnose problems. Lawful basis: legitimate interests.

4. Special Category (health) data

If you tell us about health conditions, mobility, medications, or care needs — whether for yourself or a relative — that is what UK GDPR calls ‘Special Category Data’. It needs more careful handling than ordinary personal information.

We only ask for what we need to give you a useful response. You do not have to share clinical detail to enquire.
Where you choose to share health information through the website or on a phone call, we treat your sharing of it as your explicit consent for us to use it for the purpose of responding to you.
We do not share health information with third parties for marketing.
If you become a client, your care record is governed by our service privacy notice and the Caldicott Principles, which set a higher bar again.

We share personal information only where we need to, and only with organisations that meet appropriate data protection standards. Our main external processors are:

Dialpad — provides the phone number routing and call handling infrastructure.
Google Workspace — handles email correspondence with you.
Analytics provider — Google Analytics 4 (only if you accept analytics cookies). See our Cookie Policy.

Each of these acts as a ‘processor’ on our behalf under a written data processing agreement. They cannot use your information for their own purposes.

We do not sell personal information. We do not share enquiry data with marketing partners.

We may share information with the police, regulators, or other public bodies where we are legally required to do so, and with our professional advisers under duties of confidentiality.

6. International transfers

Most of our infrastructure is hosted in the UK. Some of our processors are based outside the UK (e.g. Google Analytics may transfer data internationally).

Where personal data is transferred outside the UK, we rely on the safeguards set out in UK GDPR — either an adequacy decision (for transfers to countries the UK government has approved), or appropriate safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA) or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, together with any additional measures we judge necessary.

If you would like a copy of the safeguards we rely on for a particular transfer, please email us at team@oakmacare.co.uk.

7. How long we keep your information

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it for, plus any period required by law or for genuine business reasons (such as defending a legal claim).

Information	How long	Notes
Contact form / Arrange Care form data (no resulting client relationship)	12 months from last contact	After this we delete or anonymise. If your enquiry becomes a care relationship, your data moves into your client record under the service privacy notice.
Phone call recordings & transcripts (no resulting client relationship)	90 days from call
Phone call recordings & transcripts (resulting in care relationship)	Migrated to client record	Then governed by the service privacy notice retention rules.
Job applications (unsuccessful)	6 months from decision	Held to evidence fair recruitment, then deleted unless you ask us to keep your details on file for future roles, in which case 24 months.
Job applications (successful)	Migrated to employee record	Then governed by the workforce privacy notice.
Server logs	30 days	Security and abuse prevention only.
Analytics data (if you accept cookies)	26 months	GA4 default user-level retention. See Cookie Policy.

8. Your rights

UK GDPR gives you a set of rights over your personal information. You have the right to:

Be informed about how we use your information — that is what this notice is for.
Access the personal information we hold about you (a ‘subject access request’).
Rectify anything that is wrong.
Erase your information (‘right to be forgotten’) — this isn’t absolute and there are situations where we can keep it (for example, where the law requires us to).
Restrict how we use your information while we look into a query.
Portability — get a copy of your information in a structured, commonly used format.
Object to how we are using your information — particularly to anything we are doing on the basis of legitimate interests, and to direct marketing.
Withdraw consent — wherever we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. This does not undo what we did before you withdrew it.
Rights related to automated decisions — you can ask for a human review of any decision that meaningfully affects you and was made solely by automated means. The AI on our phone line does not make decisions about you — every decision affecting you is made or approved by a human. But the right exists and you can use it.

How to exercise your rights

Email us at team@oakma.co.uk or write to us at our registered office. We will respond within one calendar month. Most rights are free to exercise.

9. Cookies

Our website uses cookies. We explain what each cookie does, how long it lasts, and how to change your settings, in our Cookie Policy — please read it alongside this notice. The first time you visit, our consent banner will ask you to accept or reject non-essential cookies. You can change your choices at any time using the ‘Cookie settings’ link in the website footer.

10. Children

This website is designed for adults — typically those arranging home care for themselves, a relative, or someone they support. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly market our service to anyone under 18.

If you mention children in the course of an enquiry — for example, because they live in the household where care will be delivered, or because they are relevant to the care arrangements — we will handle that information with the same care as any other information you share, and only use it for the purpose you shared it with us.

If you are under 18 and have shared personal information with us through this website, please get in touch and we will help you.

11. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first — email team@oakma.co.uk — so we have the chance to put it right. If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF

Helpline: 0303 123 1113
Website: ico.org.uk

12. Changes to this notice

We will update this notice from time to time — for example, if we add a new processor or change a retention period. The ‘Effective date’ at the top of the page tells you when the current version came into force. For substantive changes, we will let you know directly if we have your contact details. Older versions are available on request.