This privacy notice tells you what I will do with your personal information from initial point of contact through to after therapy has ended.

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

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 Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) of which I am a registered member. These guidelines have been set up to protect your confidential material and ensure that your Counsellor always conducts themselves with professionalism and integrity.

Holding/Using your Personal Information
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. If you have had counselling 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 counselling or if you are in contact with me to consider counselling, I will process your personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our contract.

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 is necessary for a contract between me and you.

How I Use your Information
I will never use your personal data for any purposes other than the administration of the counselling service that I am providing to you, for example: to arrange, cancel and/or re-arrange appointments. I will only retain your personal information for as long as is necessary and this is in line with guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Initial Contact: When you contact me to book your first session, 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 and/or phone number. This information is requested so that you could be informed if I was unable to attend an appointment due to unforeseen circumstances. If you do not want to be contacted under any circumstances, you do not need to provide a contact method. Alternatively, an organisation such as your employer may send me your details when making a referral. If an enquiry is made and you decide not to proceed, I will ensure that all of your personal data is deleted within one (1) month. If you would like me to delete this information sooner send a request in writing by emailing beanie@therapywithme.co.uk.

While you Are Accessing Therapy: Your email address or phone number will be used to provide you with written confirmation of your appointment times or to re-arrange any existing appointments if you have given consent for this. Your email address and phone 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. If applicable, I may also use your email address to send you invoices or a payment link for our sessions for payment purposes.

Once we contract to working together, I will ask you to sign a contract and complete a short assessment form containing your name, address, date of birth, contact information and also contact information for your Doctor (GP). The form is printed as a hard copy and stored in a locked filing cabinet that is only accessible by me. Please be aware that I will not routinely contact your GP to inform your GP of your sessions as our counselling 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. Be assured that what is said in our sessions will be kept confidential.

I am a Registered Member of the British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) 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 Psychotherapist who is a member of the BACP & also abides by the BACP’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 (7) years after therapy has ended. This time frame adheres with current industry guidelines. Seven (7) years after therapy has ended your therapy notes will be confidentially destroyed. Your personal details form is confidentially destroyed on ending your therapy sessions.

Please note that I need to keep a record of your name, date of birth and your client reference number for seven (7) years after therapy ends. Your client reference number corresponds with a client reference number on your therapy notes and therefore enables me to identify your therapy notes if necessary whilst maintaining confidentiality.

Third-Party Recipients of Personal Data
I share a limited amount of personal data with third parties in order to provide therapy services to you and to fulfil legal obligations in respect of tax and/or accounting purposes, for example: my accountant is permitted access to my invoices.
If your appointments are paid for or arranged via a third party, for example, your employer the only information shared with the third party is your dates of attendance and non-attendance for invoicing and payment purposes. Details about what is discussed in your appointments will remain confidential and can only be shared if you give me your written consent to do so.

I will never pass on your contact details to any third-party organisations for the purposes of sales, marketing or research.

Data Security
I take the security of the data that I hold about you very seriously. My email account is password protected and both the mobile phone and laptop used to respond to your emails are: password and/or fingerprint scan protected, can only be accessed by me and have up-to-date anti-virus software. Any email correspondence will be deleted within four (4) weeks if it is not necessary to keep it. If it is necessary to retain the information, I will print a hard copy of 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 usage practices described within 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 entered will be collated into an email and sent to me using an encrypted service.

Your Rights
Any personal data retained by me is kept in accordance with GDPR, 2018. Under GDPR, 2018 guidelines you have the following rights: The right to request access to the personal information that I store and process about you. You can ask for corrections to be made to the information held or for your personal information to be deleted. You can also ask me to restrict the processing of your personal information or to object to the processing of it altogether in some circumstances. You can read more about your rights at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/. If you would like to make a request relating to any of the rights above, please send a request in writing by emailing beanie@therapywithme.co.uk.

Please be aware that in certain situations Counsellors may be unable to comply with the above requests. Instances where I would not be able to comply with your request are as follows:

• It is necessary for me to retain these records in order to continue providing an effective service.

• I am compelled to retain these records by a Court of Law.

• I require these records in order to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

Please note there may be a charge for complying with a request if it is deemed to be excessive in nature.

Breaches of Data Protection
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.

Raising Concerns/Queries
‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person or organisation that collects and stores and has responsibility for people’s personal data. In this instance, the data controller is Beanie Aujla and I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office. The ICO registration reference number for Beanie Aujla also known as BA Therapy is: ZB606620. Should you have any concerns about my data protection practices, or the way in which I handle your personal information, you can raise these directly with me in writing by contacting me at beanie@therapywithme.co.uk. You can also notify the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Changes to Privacy Notice
This privacy notice may be updated so please occasionally check for any updates.