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Privacy Notice

Introduction

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 email.

As a private practitioner, I am the Data Controller of your personal information. To provide effective therapeutic care, I collect and process the following data:

  • Personal Data: Your name, date of birth, address, phone number, email address, and emergency contact details.
  • Special Category Data: Brief, anonymised clinical notes summarising our sessions, mental health history, relevant medical details, and GP contact information.
Lawful Basis
My lawful basis for processing this data under the UK GDPR is Contractual (to fulfil our therapy agreement) and Health and Social Care (Article 9(2)(h) for processing special category health data).  
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 may include name, address, contact details, emergency contact information, GP information, medication and relevant medical history.

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 an enquiry on your behalf.

While you are accessing counselling: I will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling services run smoothly.

Confidentially and the Limits of Disclosure

Everything discussed within our sessions is strictly confidential. Your information will never be shared with third parties without your explicit consent, with the following legal and professional exceptions:

Clinical Supervision: In line with professional requirements, my practice is regularly supervised by a qualified clinical supervisor. Case details are discussed in an entirely anonymised format, protecting your identity.

Statutory Obligations: Under UK law, I am legally compelled to break confidentiality and report directly to the authorities without your consent if I become aware of information regarding Acts of Terrorism, Money Laundering / Drug Trafficking, or if ordered by a Court of Law.

Safeguarding: If I believe you or someone else (particularly a child or vulnerable adult) is at immediate risk of serious harm, I have a professional duty of care to contact your GP, emergency services, or local safeguarding teams. I will always endeavor to discuss this with you before taking action, where safe to do so.

 

Third party recipients of personal data

I sometimes share personal data with third parties, for example, where I have contracted with a supplier to carry out specific tasks. In such cases I have carefully selected which partners I work with. I take great care to ensure that I have a contract with the third party that states what they are allowed to do with the data I share with them. I ensure that they do not use your information in any way other than the task for which they have been contracted. 

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 and email it to me.

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.
 

Organisation name: Theresa Babbs-Durrant (Mental Health Coach & Therapist) is a trading name of Zen Perspectives Ltd

Reference: ZA584615

Data Retention and Security

Storage: All electronic data is stored on an encrypted, UK GDPR-compliant Electronic Health Record (EHR) system. Any paper documents are scanned, uploaded securely, and physically shredded.

Retention Periods:

  • Adults: In line with professional indemnity insurance guidelines and best practices, client records are held securely for 7 years following the date of termination, after which they are permanently deleted.
  • Children/Young People (Under 18): Records are retained until the client’s 25th or 26th birthday (depending on their age when therapy concluded) or for 7 years, whichever is longer.
Additional information
Visitors to my website
When someone visits my website, I use a third party service, Hubspot 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 allow Hubspot to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website.
 
I use legitimate interests as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information in this way when you visit my
website.
 
I use Hubspot so that I can continually improve my service to you. You can read Hubspot's privacy notice here to find out more about their data protection.

Like most websites we use cookies to help the site work more efficiently - find out about our use of cookies. 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.