Privacy policy

I understand how important your privacy is. I take care to maintain your confidentiality in accordance with current data protection laws (GDPR, 2018) and the ethical guidelines of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). These guidelines have been set up to protect your confidential material and ensure that your therapist always conducts themselves with professionalism and integrity.

In order to provide you with the best service possible, I will hold your personal contact details and records of your therapy sessions. Please find below important information about how this information will be held and used.

  • I use a secure, encrypted and password protected document to collect and store your personal data. At the point of booking your initial consultation with me, you will be asked for your personal contact information, for example your name, address, email address and telephone number and you may also choose to share details of the issues you are looking for help with.

    Your contact information is stored securely and can only be accessed by me.

    In order to be able to fulfil my duty of care to you, in your initial consultation or first session, I will ask you for contact information for your GP and elected Emergency Contact person. These details will be stored securely and will only be accessible to me.

    This personal information will be held for the duration of your therapy after which it will be deleted from my database.

    Please note that I will need to keep a record of your name and client reference number for seven years after the end of your therapy, so that I can respond effectively to any potential requests regarding your clinical notes and treatment.

    If you decide not to proceed I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within one month. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know.

    I will never pass on your contact details to any third party organisations for the purposes of sales, marketing or research and will never use your personal data for any purposes other than the administration of the counselling service I am providing to you i.e. to arrange, cancel and rearrange appointments and collect payment for sessions.

  • This website uses cookies and similar technologies, which are small files or pieces of text that download to a device when a visitor accesses a website or app. For information about viewing the cookies dropped on your device, visit the cookies Squarespace uses.

    These functional and required cookies are always used, which allow Squarespace, my hosting platform, to securely serve this website to you. This website uses performance cookies to view site traffic, activity, and other data. Analytics cookies have been disabled so non-essential cookies are not placed on visitors’ browsers.

    I do not collect or view visitors’ IP addresses or other personal data that is not shared with me on the ‘contact me’ page.

  • Payments made through the booking page of the website or at the time of an in-person session are made through the secure Stripe Connect server. My website does not hold your payment information. Where you have made payment for your session by bank transfer, there will be a record of your bank account name relating to the payment as well as the reference. I do not have access to your card details and therefore will never keep a record of your card details.

  • Everything that you discuss with me is confidential. Confidentiality will only be broken if there is concern about your safety or the safety of someone else, or I am instructed to do so by a Court of Law. I will always endeavour to speak to you about this first.

    During remote working I will ensure that I am conducting online and telephone sessions in a quiet, private and confidential setting. I have selected video calling platforms that offer end to end encryption to ensure maximum privacy. Please note however that I cannot be held responsible for any breaches that occur due to failures in this technology.

    I discuss my clinical work in supervision. This is to ensure that I am offering you the best service possible. These conversations are bound by confidentiality and you will only be referred to by your first name.

    I will also keep notes of each session. These are anonymised and are stored in a locked filing cabinet or within a password protected file. These notes are for my use only and help to keep track of our sessions and are for my use only. In line with industry guidelines, these notes will be kept securely for up to seven years after your therapy comes to an end. After this time they will be confidentially destroyed.

    If your sessions are paid for or arranged via a third party, (e.g. your employer, a friend, or a family member), other than payment requests, invoices or receipts, your counselling information will not be shared. Details about what is discussed in your sessions will remain confidential between us. Any information can only be shared if you provide your written consent.

  • I obtain information from:

    What you choose to share with me - when you first contact me via my website's contact form, or when you phone or email me to make an enquiry.

    What you choose to share with me - information you send me by email, text or voice message.

    Sessions we have together in person face to face, by phone and online.

    Your healthcare provider, if relevant, and with your consent.

    If you get in touch via my useful contact form, you will choose what information you wish to share with me. Your information is not stored anywhere on my website platform - that option has been disabled - so your contact form goes directly through to my email.

    If you make a booking through the bookings page of this site you will be asked some yes/ no questions. This is to determine suitability for meeting without an introductory phone call.

  • I will only use your email address and telephone number to contact you about your appointments. I may also contact you directly via email in order to share information with you that is pertinent to your therapeutic process.

    Your phone number may also be used to issue appointment reminders via text message. You can opt in or out of text updates.

    I sometimes share limited personal data with third parties, e.g. where I have contracted with a supplier to carry out specific tasks or legal obligations in respect of tax and accounting purposes such as invoicing. In such cases I ensure that I have a contract with the third party that states what they are allowed to do with the data I share with them. I ensure that they do not use your information in any way other than the task for which they have been contracted.

  • Any personal data retained by me is kept in accordance with the GDPR, 2018.

    Under these guidelines you have the following rights:

    1. The right to request access to your data

    You can request to view the information that I hold about you any time.

    2. The right of rectification

    At any point during your time using my service or during the seven years thereafter, while I retain your records, you have the right to request amendments to your contact details or session notes. This right can be exercised either by speaking directly to me or by contacting me in writing.

    You can read more about your rights at ico.org.uk/your-data-matters.

  • When you book your first session with me, you will be asked to confirm that you consent to the storage and processing of your personal data for the purposes of providing therapeutic services.

    You are entitled to withdraw this consent at any time.

  • In the event of any breach of my data protection policies, I will notify you and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) within 72 hours and will seek to rectify this immediately.

  • Should you have any concerns about my data protection practices, you can raise these directly with me. You can also notify the Information Commissioner’s Office. I am registered with ICO under the reference number ZB586022.