Privacy

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 am happy to chat through any questions you might have about my data protection policy and you can find my email on the contact page. ‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person/ organisation that collects and stores and has responsibility for people’s personal data. In this instance, the data controller is me.

The GDPR states that I must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. There are different lawful bases depending on the stage at which I am processing your data. I have explained these below: If you have had therapy with me and it has now ended, I will use legitimate interest as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information. If you are currently having therapy or if you are in contact with me to consider therapy, I will process your personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our therapeutic work together.

The GDPR also makes sure that I look after any sensitive personal information that you may disclose to me appropriately. This type of information is called ‘special category personal information’. The lawful basis for me processing any special categories of personal information is that it is for provision of health treatment (in this case counselling) and necessary for a contract with a health professional.

Initial Contact

When you contact me with an enquiry about my counselling services I will collect information to help me satisfy your enquiry. This will include you name, email and/or telephone, and a brief account of your reasons for considering therapy. Alternatively, your GP or other health professional may send me your details when making a referral or trusted individual may give me your details when making an enquiry on your behalf. If you decide not to proceed I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within 1 month. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, please just let me know.

While you are accessing counselling:

Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. On a rare occasions, I may feel it’s appropriate that it would help to have a further referral or additional support. In this event I would talk about this with you first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this. I will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling services run smoothly. These details are kept securely and are not shared with any third party. I will keep written notes of each session, these are kept in a secure unit. Any email correspondence will be deleted after 6 months if it is not important.

After counselling has ended:

Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for 5 years from the end of our contact with each other and should you not revisit the therapy during this time will then be securely destroyed. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please tell me.

Data Security:

I take the security of the data I hold about you very seriously and as such I take every effort to make sure it is kept secure in a locked cabinet.

Your rights:

I try to be as open as I can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. You have a right to ask me to delete your personal information, to limit how I use your personal information, or to stop processing your personal information. If you would like to access the information I do have, please contact me at my email which can be found on my website.

Privacy policy last updated 15/01/2025.