1. What cookies are

A cookie is a small text file that a website stores on your device. Similar technologies, such as local storage, pixels and tracking scripts, do much the same job. We use the word "cookies" in this policy to cover all of them.

Cookies are used for a range of purposes. They keep a booking secure while you complete it, remember what you typed into a form, and tell us how many people visited a page. They can also be used to track people across different websites. We do not use them for that.

2. Your choice, and how it works

When you first visit our website you will see a banner giving you three options: accept all cookies, reject all non-essential cookies, or choose which categories you are happy with.

Nothing non-essential runs until you say yes. Analytics cookies are blocked until you consent. Rejecting is as easy as accepting, and the reject button is the same size and just as prominent as the accept button.

Closing the banner is not consent. If you dismiss it without choosing, only strictly necessary cookies are used.

You can change your mind at any time using the cookie settings link in the footer of every page. Withdrawing consent is as easy as giving it.

We record your choice, and the date and time you made it, so that we can show what you consented to. Your choice is stored for six months, after which we will ask again.

Our cookie banner is not provided by a third party. No outside company receives any information about your visit in order to ask you this question. Your choice is stored in your own browser, and a record of the choice and the time it was made is kept in our own secure storage. It is not linked to your customer record, your appointments or anything to do with your assessment.

3. Strictly necessary cookies

These make the website work. They cannot be switched off, and we do not need your consent for them, because the site cannot deliver what you asked for without them. They do not track you and they are not used for advertising.

Session cookie, set by our website platform. Keeps your session working as you move between pages, and keeps a form or a booking intact while you complete it. Expires at the end of your session.

cs_consent, set by us. Remembers which categories you accepted or rejected, and when, so we do not ask again on every page and so we can evidence your choice. Expires after six months.

Security and anti-abuse cookies, set by our website platform. Protect forms and login areas against automated abuse. Expire between the end of your session and twelve months.

Load balancing cookie, set by our website platform. Keeps your requests going to the same server so pages load correctly.

Expires at the end of your session.

Stripe payment cookies, set by Stripe. Set only on a page where a payment is being taken. Process the payment and detect fraudulent transactions. Stripe is the card processor, not us. Expire between the end of your session and twelve months.

Strictly necessary cookies are used because they are needed to provide a service you have asked for. That is the exemption in regulation 6(4) of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.

4. Analytics cookies

These help us understand how the website is used, so we can make it better. They are only set if you consent.

_ga, set by Google Analytics 4. Distinguishes one visitor from another so we can count unique visitors rather than page loads. Expires after thirteen months.

ga followed by a container code, set by Google Analytics 4. Holds the state of the current visit, so a person who reads three pages counts as one visit. Expires after thirteen months.

What we look at is aggregated: how many people visited, which pages they read, how they found us, and where people leave the site. We do not use analytics to identify you individually, we have turned off Google's advertising features and data sharing, and we have set IP addresses to be anonymised.

Google Analytics is provided by Google Ireland Limited and Google LLC, and involves a transfer of data to the United States. Our Privacy Notice explains how that transfer is made lawful.

5. Cookies we do not use

We do not use the following.

No advertising or retargeting cookies. We do not run a Meta pixel, a Google Ads remarketing tag, a TikTok pixel or anything equivalent on this website.

No cross-site tracking. Nothing on this site follows you to another website.

No cookies that use your health information or your ethnicity. That information is never available to any cookie, tag or script on the website.

No selling or sharing of website data with data brokers or advertising networks.

6. Content from other websites

Some pages may include content hosted elsewhere, for example an embedded video or a map. That content can set its own cookies once it loads.

Where we embed third-party content we do so in privacy-enhanced mode where the provider offers it, and the embed does not load until you have accepted the relevant cookie category. If you reject non-essential cookies you will see a placeholder with a link to view the content on the provider's own site instead.

This applies to embedded video from YouTube, which is provided by Google and may set cookies to remember playback preferences and measure views, and to maps and review widgets from our Google Business Profile. Both load only after consent.

We do not control what these providers do with the information they collect. Their own privacy and cookie policies apply.

7. Managing cookies in your browser

Alongside our banner, you can control cookies in your browser settings. Every major browser lets you see what is stored, delete it, and block cookies from being set.

Blocking all cookies will stop parts of our website working, in particular online booking and payment, because those depend on the strictly necessary cookies in section 3.

You can also turn on a global privacy signal in your browser. Where our platform supports it we honour it as a rejection of non-essential cookies.

8. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy whenever we add, remove or change a cookie, and whenever we add a new tool to the website. The version published on our website is always the current one, and the date at the top of this policy shows when it was last updated.

We review this list at least once a year, and after any change to the website, so that what this page says matches what the site actually does.

9. Contact

Questions about this policy, or about cookies on our website, can go to our Data Protection Lead, Jayne Denton, Director, by email at [email protected], or by post at Ravenstone Wellness Ltd, 140 Lee Lane, Bolton, England, BL6 7AF.

How we handle personal information more generally is set out in our Privacy Notice. If you are not satisfied with how we have dealt with a cookie question you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at www.ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.