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
• Whether you have to provide it to me
• How long I store it for
• Whether there are other recipients of your personal information
• Whether I intend to transfer it to another country,
• 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 kittymedlicottcounselling@gmail.com.
‘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.
I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office: ZB846875.
My phone number is 07930 083 628
My email address is: kittymedlicottcounselling@gmail.com.
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 counselling) 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.
When you contact me with an enquiry about my counselling services, I will collect information to help me satisfy your
enquiry. This will include your name, telephone number, email and your enquiry type (featuring the potential location of sessions). Alternatively, your GP or other health professional may send me your details when making a referral or a parent or trusted individual may give me your details when making anenquiry on your behalf.
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.
While you are accessing counselling.
Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. I am a 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.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 counsellor who 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.
For security reasons I do not retain text messages for more than one month. If there is relevant information
contained in a text message or email I will print the message out and store it in a locked filing cabinet.
After counselling 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 years after therapy has ended. This time frame adheres with current industry guidelines. Seven years after therapy has ended your therapy notes will be confidentially destroyed. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please tell me.
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 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
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 accounting purposes. For example, my accountant is permitted access to my invoices and if you contact me to book an appointment I will give your name to reception at the location where your appointment is due to take place in order to book your appointment at that location. Where I have contracted with a supplier to carry out tasks I have carefully selected which organisations I work with. I state that they do not use your information in any way other than the task for which they have been contracted. I will never pass on your contact details to any third party organisations for the purposes of sales, marketing or research.
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.
Your rights
I try to be as open as I can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. You have a right to ask me to delete your personal information, to limit how I use your personal information, or to stop processing your personal
information. You also have a right to ask for a copy of any information that I hold about you and to object to the use of
your personal data in some circumstances. You can read more about your rights at ico.org.uk/your-data-matters.
If I do hold information about you I will:
• give you a description of it and where it came from;
• tell you why I am holding its, tell you how long I will store
your data and how I made this decision;
• tell you who it could be disclosed to;
• let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.
You can also ask me at any time to correct any mistakes there may be in the personal information I hold about you.
To make a request for any personal information I may hold about you, please put the request in writing addressing it to
kittymedlicottcounselling@gmail.com
If you have any complaint about how I handle your personal data please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by writing or emailing to the contact details given above. I would welcome any suggestions for improving my data protection procedures.
If you want to make a formal complaint about the way I have processed your personal information you can contact the ICO which is the statutory body that oversees data protection law in the UK. For more information go to ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.
Data security
I take the security of the data that I hold about you very seriously. My email account is password protected and mobile phones and laptops used to respond to your emails are password protected. Any email correspondence will be deleted within one month if it is not necessary to keep it. If it is necessary to retain the information I will print the email and store it securely in a locked filing cabinet that only I have access to.
Additional information for website owners and employers
Visitors to my website
When someone visits my website, I use a third party service, SquareSpace to collect standard internet log
information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. I do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way that does not identify anyone. I do not make, and do not SquareSpace to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website. You can read SquareSpace’s privacy notice here: https://www.squarespace.com/privacy.
I use legitimate interests as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information in this way when you visit my website.
Like most websites we use cookies to help the site work more efficiently - find out about our use of cookies. https://www.squarespace.com/cookie-policy
No user-specific data is collected by me or any third party. If you fill in a form on my website, that data will be temporarily stored on the web host before being sent to me.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this privacy policy or how your information is used, please contact:
Kitty Medlicott
kittymedlicottcounselling@gmail.com
Last Updated: 02/09/25
