I am committed to ensuring that your personal details are stored securely and to protecting your rights to privacy. I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (reg ref: ZB944287) and abide by UK data protection legislation (GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018).

‍The information collected is necessary for our working relationship. This includes your full name, address, date of birth, phone number, email address, GP details, an emergency contact number, medical conditions, medication and involvement with other services. This information is essential to inform and facilitate the therapeutic relationship and to provide assessment and therapeutic services which are ethical and appropriate to your individual needs. I will collect your personal information via email, over the telephone, in writing and in person during our sessions. I make brief clinical notes which are stored separately to your personal information in a coded, anonymised format.

I am required by my professional body (NCPS) to have professional clinical supervision of my work. No identifiable information is shared with my supervisor and we are both members of recognised professional bodies (NCPS and BACP respectively) which both have enforceable codes of ethics. I am also required to audio-record some sessions for training purposes. The recordings are stored securely under password-protection and are deleted as soon as the training purpose has been met. No identifiable information is shared via these recordings.

I will only share personal information you have given if there is:

-          An immediate risk of harm to yourself or others

-          A legal requirement to disclose information about illegal activity (eg, money laundering, drug trafficking or terrorism)

-          Due legal process, eg, a court order

Some of your personal information, such as video conferencing, telephone call data or payment information is shared with the relevant provider, mobile phone operator or card payment provider, respectively. These third parties operate under their own privacy policies and these can be provided upon request.

‍I will never share your personal information with third parties for commercial purposes.

The rights you have under data protection law are:

-          To access your personal data and have an explanation of your personal data

-          To request correction or erasure of personal data or, in certain circumstances, to request limiting or ceasing data protection.

To find out more, or if you have any complaints that cannot be resolved by discussion between us, please visit https://ico.org.uk/

If you have a complaint about any other aspect of the service I provide, I would encourage you to raise this with me first so that we can try to resolve it together. If this does not feel possible, or if we are unable to resolve it, you can raise a complaint with my professional body, the NCPS, at: https://ncps.com/complaints/complaints-concerns-procedure

I will store your records as follows:

-          Normally seven years (a condition of my professional insurance). This may be longer if both of us agree – in which case, I will ask you to sign a new consent form

-          HMRC requires me to keep accounts information for six years, plus the current tax year – so up to seven years in total

Paper records are stored in a locked filing cabinet and electronic files are individually password protected on a password protected laptop. Your phone number is stored on my phone for emergencies, but under an anonymised code rather than your name.