Privacy Notice
At Chardon Counselling Service, we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. Any personal information we collect from you is only used for specific purposes: to process bookings; provide you with a therapeutic service and support; and to share information that you have requested which might be of interest to you. We do not and will not share your personal information with third parties, unless authorised by you.
This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about you for the purposes of making an appointment or contact us via email or through our website. It also explains how we use it and keep it secure.
How your personal information is collected
The personal information we collect is usually on a ‘Client Record’ sheet you will be asked to complete at your first session. However personal information may also be collected electronically when you make enquiries either by telephone, text, or email, including through enquiries using our website www.chardoncounselling.com.
Type of information we collect from you
The type of information we collect could include your name, address, email address, telephone numbers, and doctor’s or agency details.
Notes: Your therapist also will make brief notes from each session in order to gain a deeper understanding of what is going on for you. These notes will not contain any information, such as your name or other details that might identify you. Instead they will carry a code, which is used by your therapist for cross-referencing purposes.
How we use your personal information
We use your information to:
- contact you to make and confirm appointments;
- provide customer care, including responding to your requests for information
- seek your views or comments on the service we provide
- notify you of changes to our service
We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We will hold your personal information for a year after completing your therapy. For legal reasons your notes may be retained for up to 6 years.
Confidentiality
We respect your right to privacy and offer a confidential service. Only in certain rare circumstances will any personal information about you be passed to anyone outside the service.
These circumstances are where:
- you have given your permission for your therapist to disclose information to a specific person (such as your doctor) or agency
- you, the therapist or someone else is in serious danger
- your therapist would be liable to civil or criminal proceedings if the information were not disclosed
Your therapist will normally encourage you to personally pass on information to the relevant person or agency. However, if the crisis or danger is significantly acute, your therapist may pass on the information directly. For your own wellbeing you are therefore asked to complete and sign our ‘Client Record’, which includes a disclosure authorisation.
Storage of your information
Your personal information is held securely in a locked storage unit. Information held in emails or on smart phones or computer are protected by password. Your therapist’s notes of sessions with you, are unidentifiable, but are nevertheless, also password protected.
Apart from your therapist no one else has access to your personal information. However, in the circumstances of your therapist becoming incapacitated, or in any way unable to function normally, their supervisor who is also bound by the provisions of the GDPR, is given authority to contact you, and to collect and securely destroy the information held about you.
Your therapist and supervisor also adhere to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy. A copy of this is available at www.bacp.co.uk/ethical_framework.
Your choices
You have a choice about whether or not to give us permission to hold your data, but if you chose not to, then it would become impossible for us to contact you in the event of any changes to your appointment, or to provide you with information to support you in your therapy. You also have the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you.
Keeping your personal information up to date
The accuracy of your information is important to us, so if you change address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate, or becomes out of date, please inform us.
Review of this Policy
We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in July 2020.