What a cookie is
A cookie is a small file a website asks your browser to keep, so that the site can recognise your browser the next time. Some are needed for a site to work at all. Others measure how a site is used or follow you to show advertising, and the law says those may be set only with your agreement.
What this website sets
Two cookies are set for everyone, because the site cannot work safely without them.
- miles_cookie_consent
- Remembers what you told the cookie banner, so you are not asked on every page. It holds the version of this policy you answered, a random id, when you answered and your choice for each optional category. It is strictly necessary: a site is allowed to remember that you said no. It lasts 6 months, after which you are asked again.
- __cf_bm
- Set by Cloudflare, which delivers the website, to tell people from automated traffic and keep the site secure. It lasts 30 minutes and is strictly necessary.
Two more are optional, and none of them is set, and nothing is sent to Google, unless you agree in the banner. We use Google's Consent Mode, so Google is told your choice and keeps to it.
- Analytics: _ga and _ga_*
- Set by Google Analytics, which counts visits and the pages people read, so we can see what helps and what to improve. Google Analytics is told when a booking is made and what it cost, never which service it was for. The cookies last up to 2 years.
- Advertising: _gcl_au
- Set by Google Ads, so we can see whether someone who clicked one of our adverts went on to book, and only pay for adverts that work. We do not use it to show you adverts on other websites. It lasts 90 days.
Neither is ever loaded on My bookings, whatever you choose: that page is about your appointments, and none of it goes to Google.
Set by services we use
A few things on the site are provided by other companies, and they may set cookies of their own when you use them. None of them is loaded until you do.
- My bookings
- When you sign in to see your appointments, Booked, the appointment system we use from trybooked.co, sets a session cookie so that you stay signed in. It is strictly necessary for the page to work, and signing out ends it.
- Paying online
- The payment step loads a form from Stripe, our payment processor. Stripe sets cookies to make the payment work and to detect fraud. They are set only on the payment step, and they are described in Stripe's own cookie policy.
- Videos in the Health Hub
- A video plays through YouTube's privacy-enhanced player, which sets nothing until you press play. Once you do, YouTube may store information on your device under its own policy.
- Editing the site
- Staff who sign in to edit the website are given the usual WordPress cookies. Visitors never are.
The record we keep of your choice
The law asks a site to be able to show that consent was given. Each time you answer the banner, the pharmacy's own system records the answer, the version of this policy it was given against, the time, your browser's description, and a hashed form of your network address that cannot be turned back into the address. The record is kept for 24 months and then deleted.
If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, the banner starts with the optional categories switched off and records that it saw the signal.
Changing your mind
Use the Cookie choices button at the foot of every page to see the banner again and change your answer. Withdrawing is as easy as agreeing was.
You can also delete cookies, or block them, in your browser's settings. Blocking the strictly necessary cookie means the banner will ask you on every visit, and blocking Booked's session cookie means My bookings cannot keep you signed in.