Privacy & Cookie Policy

This policy explains how The Community of St Antony & St Elias handles personal information when you use this website, make an enquiry, contact us about referrals, or share information with us.

The Community of St Antony & St Elias and Maria Skobtsova House Ltd are the data controllers for the personal information they process. This means they are responsible for deciding how and why that information is used. Our office address is The Priory, Priory Drive, Totnes, Devon, TQ9 5HU.

For privacy questions, requests or concerns, contact the office at enquiries@comae.org.uk or 01803 865473 and ask for the Managing Director or Operations Manager. You can also write to our office address above.

For a general enquiry, you can contact us by email or telephone. Please do not include detailed clinical, medication, risk or safeguarding information in a general email.

Referral documents and sensitive information should be sent to the secure NHSmail address shown on our Referrals page, using NHSmail-to-NHSmail, Egress or another route approved by your organisation where appropriate.

This public website policy may be supplemented by more specific privacy information for residents, families, staff, referrers and other people whose information we process.

Answers entered in either browser-based recruitment form stay in that browser page, and your completed PDF is created on your device. The website does not submit those answers or save a draft; we receive your details only when you email the completed PDF to us. Download or save your PDF before leaving the form. If you choose Share PDF, the file is passed to the app or service you select.

Our expression-of-interest form asks for your name, contact details, preferred role and a brief introduction, with optional availability information. We use this to respond to your enquiry. We ask for a full application and appropriate recruitment information only if we invite you to take things further. Access is limited to people who need it for recruitment.

You can separately opt in on either form to let us keep your name, contact details and relevant recruitment preferences and experience for up to 12 months from receipt of that form, so we can contact you about suitable vacancies. This is optional and does not affect how we respond to your current enquiry or application.

For this future-vacancy file, we rely on your consent. We do not include National Insurance details, criminal-record information or referees' personal details in that file. You can withdraw consent at any time by emailing enquiries@comae.org.uk. We delete the details kept for future vacancies after 12 months, or sooner if you withdraw consent.

This choice relates only to future vacancies. Other recruitment records are handled separately under our retention schedule; contact the office for the period that applies to your application.

When you contact us, we may collect your name, contact details, role, organisation, message and any information you choose to share.

For referral enquiries, we may receive personal and special category information about a potential resident, including health, mental health, risk, care, funding and statutory service information.

This information may come from the person themselves, their representative, referring professionals, health professionals or other agencies involved in their care.

We ask referrers to share only information that is relevant to considering suitability, safety and transition planning.

We use information to respond to enquiries, consider referrals, assess whether our service may be appropriate, plan visits, liaise with agreed professionals, manage records and meet legal, regulatory, safeguarding and care responsibilities.

For ordinary enquiries and administration, we generally rely on our legitimate interests in operating a safe and effective service. We may also process information where it is necessary to take steps before a placement or other agreement, comply with a legal obligation, or protect someone's vital interests.

Where health or other special category information is needed for a referral or care, we process it where necessary for health or social care, safeguarding or another substantial public interest condition, or to protect vital interests where the law permits. We rely on consent only where it is genuinely optional; consent can then be withdrawn at any time.

We do not sell personal information or share it for third-party marketing.

Information may be shared where needed with residents, families, commissioners, community mental health teams, GPs, local authorities, regulators, safeguarding bodies or other professionals involved in care and support.

We only share information where there is an appropriate reason, such as consent, care planning, contractual need, legal duty, safeguarding, risk management or regulatory requirement.

Approved IT and other service providers may process information on our behalf under written instructions, confidentiality requirements and appropriate security arrangements.

We use organisational and technical safeguards intended to keep information secure and confidential. Access is limited to people who need it for their work.

Email is useful, but ordinary email is not suitable for detailed referral information. Please use the secure submission route on our Referrals page.

Our 2026 retention schedule sets a period of eight years after discharge or last contact for adult social care records, including care plans, assessments and daily notes. Medication administration records are kept with the care records.

Safeguarding records are kept for eight years after case closure. Some records may need to be kept longer where a specific legal requirement, serious incident or ongoing investigation justifies this.

For general enquiries and referrals that do not lead to a placement, the retention period depends on the purpose of the record and any continuing care, safeguarding or legal need. Please contact the office for the period that applies to your information.

Records are reviewed and securely deleted or destroyed when they are no longer needed.

Cookies are small files placed on your device by websites. This website is designed to be simple and should not use cookies to collect sensitive care information.

At the date of this notice, the site does not use advertising or visitor-tracking cookies. Essential technical storage may be used if it is needed for security or basic operation.

If analytics or embedded services are added later, this notice will be updated and visitors will be given a clear choice where consent is required.

You can control or delete cookies through your browser settings.

You can ask what personal information we hold about you and request a copy. Depending on the circumstances, you may also have rights to correction, restriction, deletion, objection and data portability.

Some care, safeguarding, legal or regulatory records may need to be retained even if a deletion request is made. If this applies, we will explain why.

Where processing is based on consent, you can withdraw that consent. You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) about how we handle your personal information.

We will update this notice when our website or information-handling practices change. The latest revision date is shown at the top of this page.