Privacy Policy Affordable counselling Manchester

​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.

This privacy notice tells you what I will do with your personal

information from initial point of contact through to after your

therapy has ended, including:

• Why I am able to process your information and what purpose I am processing it for

• How long I store it for

• Whether there are other recipients of your personal information

• Whether I intend to transfer it to another country, and

• Whether I do automated decision-making or profiling, and

• Your data protection rights.

I am happy to chat through any questions you might have about

my data protection policy and you can contact me via email.

‘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.

My lawful basis for holding and 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. 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 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 therapy) and necessary for a contract with a health professional (in this case, a contract between me and you).​

How I use your information

​Initial contact, including initial consultation.

When you contact me with a general enquiry about my therapy services I will collect information to help me satisfy your enquiry. This will include your name, contact details, and your enquiry. This data will be retained for one month.

If you request an initial consultation, I will additionally collect some basic health information, and what you wish to address in therapy. This will be further explored in the initial consultation. This initial consultation data is collectively treated as client data and will be retained either for 7 years from collection or for 7 years after therapy has ended - whichever is later. Data supplied via the initial consultation request will be visible only to me. A copy of the form is sent to an email address that is accessible only by me. That data will be transcribed to the secure, GDR-compliant system and the email and form will be deleted within one month. 

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While you are accessing therapy.

Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential.

That confidentiality will only be broken if there is a legal requirement to do so. I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this.

I will keep a record of your personal details to help the therapy run smoothly. These details are encrypted and stored in a secure GDPR-compliant application.

For security reasons I do not retain text messages for more than 1 month. If there is relevant information contained in a text message I will add its content to your record in the secure, GDPR-compliant application. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after 1 month if it is not important. If necessary I will add its content to your record in the secure, GDPR-compliant application.

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After therapy has ended.

Once therapy has ended your records will be kept for 7 years from the end of our contact with each other and are then securely destroyed.