Privacy notice

Effective date: 5 September 2026

Who is responsible for your information

SMDJ Ltd, trading as Medica Specialist Medical Recruitment (referred to as “Medica”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this notice), is the data controller for the personal information described here.

SMDJ Ltd is registered in Northern Ireland under company number NI737750. Its registered office and postal privacy contact is 69 Drumadoon Drive, Dundonald, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT16 2PP. You can contact Medica about privacy at hello@medicarecruitment.com.

Who this notice covers

This notice covers doctors and other potential candidates, people who contact Medica about recruitment, healthcare employers and their staff, professional contacts, suppliers and website visitors.

Information we may use

Depending on your relationship with Medica, we may use:

• your name, contact details, location and communication history;
• your CV, qualifications, registration, employment history, skills, specialty, seniority, availability, mobility and recruitment preferences;
• information about roles discussed, interviews, introductions, offers and placements;
• identity, right-to-work, regulatory and role-specific compliance information where it is needed;
• an employer’s organisation, hiring contacts, vacancies, requirements and recruitment communications;
• website enquiry details, technical security information and records needed to operate and protect the service; and
• contractual, invoicing, fee, accounting, complaint and dispute records where relevant.

Please do not include passport details, criminal-record information, medical information or other unnecessary sensitive information in a general website form.

Where information comes from

We receive information directly from you, from employers and other parties involved in a recruitment process, and from records created through our communications with you.

Medica may also identify potential candidates and professional contacts through relevant public professional sources. These may include LinkedIn, professional or regulatory registers, employer or clinic websites, job boards and other public professional sources. When we obtain your information indirectly, we will provide appropriate privacy information at our first meaningful contact with you or otherwise within the period required by data-protection law.

Why we use information and our lawful bases

We use personal information only where we have a lawful basis. The main purposes and bases are:

• Recruitment conversations, research and matching: our legitimate interests in operating a specialist recruitment service and helping doctors and employers assess potentially relevant opportunities or introductions.
• Responding to enquiries and managing professional relationships: our legitimate interests, or steps requested before entering a contract where applicable.
• Introductions, interviews, placements and contracts: steps requested before entering a contract, performance of a contract, and our legitimate interests in managing a recruitment process.
• Checking role-specific eligibility and compliance: our legitimate interests, contractual requirements and legal obligations, depending on the check.
• Record keeping, invoicing, fees, claims and disputes: performance of a contract, legal obligations and our legitimate interests in maintaining accurate business records and protecting legal rights.
• Website operation, security and misuse prevention: our legitimate interests in providing a reliable and secure service.
• Recruitment and business-development communications: our legitimate interests where the communication is relevant and reasonable, with consent where PECR or another rule requires it.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we consider the purpose, necessity and effect on the people concerned. You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests. We will stop unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue or need the information for legal claims.

Confidential candidate introductions

Medica does not send an identifiable candidate CV to an employer unless the candidate knows which employer or opportunity is being discussed and agrees to that introduction. A conversation about an opportunity does not by itself authorise us to share your CV.

Health, disability and adjustment information

Medica does not routinely collect or build profiles containing health, disability or reasonable-adjustment information. We may record the minimum necessary information if a candidate volunteers it in connection with a specific role, process or adjustment request.

This is special-category data. If it is used, Medica will identify an appropriate Article 6 lawful basis and the relevant UK GDPR Article 9 and Data Protection Act 2018 condition, and apply suitable safeguards. It will be kept only for the shortest period necessary for that specific purpose.

Criminal-record and police-check information

Medica does not conduct blanket criminal-record screening or routinely retain DBS, AccessNI or overseas police-check information for every candidate. For a specific temporary, locum or other regulated assignment, we may need to receive or verify limited information where a client, regulator or applicable process requires it.

Any such processing will be limited to what is necessary and carried out with the additional safeguards required by UK GDPR Article 10 and the Data Protection Act 2018. We prefer to record verification or an outcome rather than retain a copy. Any underlying check information will be kept only for the shortest necessary period.

Recruitment and business communications

If you give Medica your details in a recruitment context, we may contact you about the enquiry, roles or market information that is reasonably relevant to what you have told us. You can ask us to stop at any time.

Business-development communications to corporate contacts may be sent where permitted on the basis of legitimate interests. Different PECR rules can apply to individuals, sole traders and some partnerships, and we will obtain consent where required. Publication of this notice does not itself authorise every form of direct marketing. We keep suppression records where necessary to respect an objection or unsubscribe request.

Who we share information with

Where necessary for the purposes above, information may be shared with:

• healthcare employers and other parties involved in a recruitment process, subject to the confidential introduction approach described above;
• professional, regulatory, compliance or legal advisers where a relevant check, obligation or claim requires it;
• Google services used in the Medica workflow, including Apps Script, Google Drive, Google Sheets, Gmail and AppSheet, where relevant to candidate, client and communication records; and
• the website hosting and security services used to deliver and protect this site, including OpenAI Sites and its Cloudflare infrastructure.

Service providers may act as processors on our instructions. We may also disclose information where the law requires it or where it is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal rights.

International transfers

Recruitment opportunities, employers and service providers may be located outside the UK. This means personal information may be accessed or processed in another country. Where UK data-protection law restricts a transfer, we will use the relevant lawful transfer mechanism and safeguards before making it. These may depend on the country, recipient and service involved.

How long we keep information

Medica reviews records against the retention period or review point that applies to them:

• general or speculative enquiries that never become an active candidate or client relationship are normally kept for up to 12 months;
• candidate records, CVs, recruitment preferences and professional contacts are reviewed after 24 months without meaningful contact. This is a review point, not an automatic deletion date. We retain a record only if there remains a genuine recruitment or professional-network purpose; otherwise we delete or anonymise it;
• records concerning active candidates, live client requirements, interviews, introductions and placements may be kept while the relationship or process remains active;
• contractual, placement, accounting, fee, claim and dispute-related records may be kept for up to six years, or longer where a legal hold or legal requirement applies;
• health, disability, adjustment and underlying criminal-record or police-check information is kept for the shortest necessary period; and
• suppression records may be kept for as long as needed to respect an objection or opt-out.

We may retain less information, anonymise it sooner, or keep it longer where the circumstances and applicable law require a different period.

Automated decision-making

Medica does not use an ATS, CRM, scoring tool or AI system to make solely automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects. Tools may assist research and organisation, but recruitment decisions and candidate introductions remain human-led.

Your rights

Under UK data-protection law, you may have the right to ask for access to your personal information; correction; deletion; restriction; or transfer of information you provided. You may also object to processing based on legitimate interests and to direct marketing.

Where processing relies on consent, you can withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal does not affect processing already carried out lawfully. Some rights depend on the circumstances and legal exemptions may apply.

To exercise a right or raise a privacy concern, email hello@medicarecruitment.com or write to the registered office above. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request.

Complaints

Please contact Medica first so that we can try to resolve your concern. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority. Visit ico.org.uk or telephone 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this notice

We may update this notice when our services, systems or legal obligations change. The effective date at the top shows when this version took effect.