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 National Counselling Society]. These guidelines have been set up to protect your confidential material and ensure that I always conduct myself 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.

Your personal information

Contact details and personal details are kept in a filing cabinet which is kept locked. Any notes that I take are kept here also. 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.

This personal information will be held for the duration of your therapy and kept for 5 years after which it will be deleted.

Please note that I will need to keep a record of your name and client reference number for 5 years after the end of your therapy, so that we can respond effectively to any potential requests regarding your clinical notes and treatment.

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.

Your therapy sessions

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 sessions in a quiet, private and confidential setting. When using Teams and Whatsapp, data exchanged is encrypted. I use Proton Mail for email sessions which is a secure email service. All emails and whatsapp messages are deleted once the information is no longer required (once I have made the session notes).

I discuss my clinical work with a supervisor. 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.

These notes are for my use only and help to keep a track of everything that is being discussed. 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.

Data Usage

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.

Your rights

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

Under these guidelines you have the following rights

The right to request access to your data

You can request to view the information that I hold about you at any time. If during therapy you would like to see your session notes, please let me know.to Should you require a copy of your notes after your therapy has come to an end you can make this request by emailing.

The right of rectification

At any point during your time using my service or during the seven years thereafter, while we 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.

The right to be forgotten

You can request that I delete and confidentially destroy the information that I hold about you and your sessions at any time. This request can be made by contacting me.

Instances where I would not be able to comply with your request are as follows:

a) It is necessary for me to retain these records in order to continue providing an effective service
b) I am compelled to retain these records by a Court of Law
c) I require these records in order to establish, exercise or defend legal claims

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

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.

Last updated: 30/08/25