Privacy Notice

In order to provide you with the best service possible I need to hold your personal contact details and records of your therapy sessions. This privacy notice tells you what I will do with your personal information from initial point of contact through to after therapy has ended. Your privacy is very important to me and you can be confident that your personal information will be kept safe and secure and will only be used for the purpose it was given to me. I adhere to current data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (EU/2016/679) (the GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. I also adhere to the ethical guidelines regarding protecting client privacy and confidentiality set by the British Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP).

Contact details

Telephone

07739183845

Email

therapy@evescott.co.uk

What information I collect, use, and why

I will never use your personal data for any purposes other than the administration of the therapy service that I am providing to you i.e. to arrange, cancel and rearrange appointments. I will only retain your personal information for as long as is necessary. This is in line with guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Initial contact: When you contact me to book your first appointment I will collect some brief information to help me to process your enquiry. This will include your name so that I can book the appointment into my diary and also a contact method, for example an email address or phone number. This information is requested so that we can arrange your online therapy session. It also allows you to be informed if I was unable to attend an appointment due to unforeseen circumstances. Alternatively, an organisation such as your employer may send me your details when making a referral or a relative may give me your details when making an enquiry on your behalf. If an enquiry is made and you decide not to proceed I will ensure that all of your personal data is deleted within one month. If you would like me to delete this information sooner please let me know.

While you are accessing therapy: Your email address or phone number will be used to provide you with written confirmation of your appointment times if you have given consent for this. Your email address and telephone number will only be used to contact you regarding appointment times unless we have agreed that I will also use your email address to email you information that is relevant to your therapy sessions.

At the beginning of your first appointment I will ask you to complete a personal details form containing your name, address, date of birth, contact information and also contact information for your GP. The form is stored in a locked filing cabinet that can only be accessed by me. Please be aware that I will not routinely contact your GP to inform your GP of your attendance as your attendance is confidential. To fulfil my duty of care towards you while also maintaining your confidentiality I will only contact your GP if it is necessary and should these circumstances arise I would discuss this with you wherever possible before contacting your GP.

Rest assured that what is said in our sessions will be kept confidential. I am an Accredited Member of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) and I abide by their professional code of ethics. Confidentiality will only be broken if there are legal or ethical obligations to disclose, for example, if you disclose abuse/neglect of a child or vulnerable adult, or say something else that implies serious harm to yourself or others, or if a court of law requires me to disclose information.

In the event that confidentiality must be broken I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this.

Counsellors are required to have regular supervision support so I may discuss our work with my supervisor. This would be done without identifying you and my supervisor is a counsellor who also abides by the BABCP’s code of ethics regarding confidentiality.

I keep brief notes of our therapy sessions for the purpose of assisting our work together. The notes help me to keep track of the issues that we are working on and they are for my use only. The notes do not include any personal details that could be used to identify you and they are stored securely in a locked filing cabinet that only I have access to. Your therapy notes are stored separately to your personal details form.

After therapy has ended: There are reasons why counsellors are required to keep records after therapy has ended. For example, in the case of financial transactions personal information must be retained for as long as legally required in respect of tax or accounting purposes. Retaining your therapy notes ensures that I can continue to offer you an efficient service if you make contact after therapy has ended. Your therapy notes do not include any personal details that could be used to identify you and continue to be stored securely in a locked filing cabinet that only I have access to for seven years after therapy has ended. This time frame adheres with current industry guidelines. Seven years after therapy has ended your therapy notes will be confidentially destroyed.

I collect or use the following information to provide services and goods, including delivery:

● Names and contact details

● Addresses

● Date of birth

● Health information (including dietary requirements, allergies and health conditions)

● Photographs or video recordings

● Call recordings

● Records of meetings and decisions

● Information relating to compliments or complaints

● Therapist notes from therapy sessions

I also collect or use the following information to provide services and goods, including delivery:

● Health information

● Sex life information

● Sexual orientation information

I collect or use the following information for the operation of customer accounts and guarantees:

● Names and contact details

● Addresses

● Purchase history

I collect or use the following information to prevent crime, prosecute offenders, or defend against legal action:

● Names and contact information

● Customer or client accounts and records

● Therapist notes from therapy sessions

Lawful bases

Our lawful bases for collecting or using personal information to provide services and goods are:

● Legitimate interest:

o Personal information is collected to understand the individual and provide best psychotherapeutic treatment.

● Vital interests

Our lawful bases for collecting or using personal information for the operation of customer accounts and guarantees are:

● Contract

Our lawful bases for collecting or using personal information to prevent crime, prosecute offenders or defend against legal action are:

● Legitimate interest:

o To maintain accurate records of psychotherapy sessions for use in the event of a dispute.

Where I get personal information from

● Clients directly

How long I keep information

Seven years after therapy has ended your therapy notes will be confidentially destroyed.

Who I share information with

Others I share personal information with

● Insurance companies

● Health care providers

● Organisations I need to share information with for safeguarding reasons

● Professional or legal advisors

● Emergency services (where necessary)

● Debt collection agencies

Your data protection rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal data.

Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify personal data you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.

Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal data in certain circumstances.

Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.

Your right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.

Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that I transfer the personal data you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

Your right to withdraw consent – When I use consent as our lawful basis you have the right to withdraw your consent.

You don’t usually need to pay a fee to exercise your rights. If you make a request, I have one calendar month to respond to you.

To make a data protection rights request, please contact us using the contact details at the top of this privacy notice.

Data security

I take the security of the data that I hold about you very seriously. My email account is password protected and mobile phones and laptops used to respond to your emails are password protected and have anti-virus software. Any email correspondence will be deleted within one month if it is not necessary to keep it. If it is necessary to retain the information I will print the email and store it securely in a locked filing cabinet that only I have access to.

Website visitors

By accessing the website, you are consenting to the information collection and use practices described in this privacy notice. Should you choose to contact me using the contact form on the website none of the data that you supply will be stored by the website or passed to any third party data processors. Instead the data will be collated into an email and sent to me over the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). SMTP servers are protected by TLS (sometimes known as SSL) meaning that the email content is encrypted before being sent across the internet. The email content is then decrypted by local computers and devices.

The website uses cookies and Google Analytics. Almost all websites use cookies which are small files that get put on your computer by websites as you surf them. These cookies can store lots of information which can have privacy implications. Google Analytics is a service provided by Google that gathers anonymous data on how people are using websites and then provides visitor statistics, details of page views etc. This service is used by many website owners as the data helps website owners to improve their websites.

How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal data, you can make a complaint to us using the contact details at the top of this privacy notice.

If you remain unhappy with how I’ve used your data after raising a complaint with us, you can also complain to the ICO.

The ICO’s address:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

Website: https://www.ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint

Last updated

1 June 2024