Privacy Policy

Who we are

Whole Self Medicine is a nurse-led health and wellbeing clinic based in Ireland, founded by Robyn Taaffe. Whole Self Medicine is the data controller for personal information collected through this website and our clinical services.

To contact us about privacy, please use the enquiry form on The Clinic page and choose “General enquiry”. Please do not include health information in a privacy request.

To be confirmed before publication: the registered business name, postal address and a dedicated privacy contact email.

Information we collect

Through the website enquiry form

Your name, email address, the consultation you are asking about, your message and your agreement to our use of those details to reply. Please do not include medical records or sensitive health information in an enquiry.

When you book and attend a consultation

Contact and booking details, payment records, and the health information you share with us, such as your medical history, symptoms, diagnoses, medications, supplements, treatments, investigation results, lifestyle and wellbeing information, and our consultation notes and plans.

Why we use it and our lawful bases

• Replying to your enquiry — our legitimate interest in responding to people who contact us, and steps you ask us to take before entering into a contract.
• Providing consultations, plans and follow-up care — performance of our contract with you.
• Keeping clinical records, invoicing and accounts — compliance with our legal and professional obligations.
• Preventing misuse of the enquiry form — our legitimate interest in keeping the website secure.

Health information

Health information is special-category data under the GDPR. We process it only where necessary for the provision of health care by a registered health professional bound by a duty of confidentiality (Article 9(2)(h) GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018), or with your explicit consent where that is the appropriate basis.

Health information is never used for marketing.

Service providers

We use carefully chosen providers who process information on our behalf:

• Lovable Cloud — hosts this website and securely stores enquiry form submissions. Enquiries are not publicly accessible.
• Google Fonts — delivers the typefaces used on this website. Your browser connects to Google's servers to load them, which shares your IP address with Google.
• Cliniko — our practice management and online booking system, which will hold appointment, payment and clinical records once online booking is live.

To be confirmed before publication: the payment processor used with Cliniko, and any email or accounting providers.

Sharing and international transfers

We do not sell your information. We share it with your GP, consultant or other healthcare professionals only with your consent, or where otherwise legally permitted or required.

Some of our service providers may process information outside the European Economic Area. Where this happens, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as an adequacy decision or the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

To be confirmed before publication: the data-hosting regions for Cliniko and Lovable Cloud.

How long we keep it

We keep information only for as long as needed for the purposes above and to meet our legal, insurance and professional obligations. Clinical records are kept in line with applicable professional guidance for healthcare records in Ireland.

To be confirmed before publication: specific retention periods for enquiries, clinical records and financial records.

Security and confidentiality

Information is stored using appropriate technical and organisational security measures. Enquiry records can only be accessed by Whole Self Medicine, and a scrambled (hashed) request identifier is used to limit repeated submissions without storing your IP address.

Your rights

You have the right to access your information, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to its use, to data portability, and to withdraw consent at any time where we rely on consent. Some rights are limited where we must keep clinical records by law.

Questions and complaints

To make a privacy enquiry or exercise your rights, contact us using the enquiry form. We will respond within one month.

You also have the right to complain to the Data Protection Commission in Ireland (dataprotection.ie).