Terms of Service
Accessing our service
Upon entering your details into any forms, on the website, sharing your details over the phone or in person, you agree to us recording, processing, storing and in some cases sharing information we hold about you. Ensure that you read and fully understand our Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Refund Policy and Problems or Complaints sections before contracting our services. All of our policies can be found on our website. A written copy of our Terms of Service and Policies can be requested at any time.
Data Protection
We care about protecting your data and we do not share your data with any external services or agencies without prior agreement from you. Exceptions to this are outlined in our confidentiality statement below in accordance with our legal, moral and ethical duty of care to you and those around you.
Data Processing and Storing
Please be aware that we use third party organisations in order to provide you with the most helpful service. Please also see our Privacy Policy.
We use BACPAC or Power Diary secure software to store your information and session notes. BACPAC software is designed by MAYDEN who developed one of the most used clinical management software systems in NHS IAPT Services. You can find their Privacy policy here: https://bac-pac.co.uk/privacy-policy. Power Diary’s privacy policy can be found here: https://www.powerdiary.com/uk/privacy-policy/.
We use card merchants to securely process your payments. Our current merchants are STRIPE, PAYPAL and MONZO. We do not accept cash payments.
Confidentiality Statement
We want you to feel that the therapy space is safe and private. Therefore, anything that you tell us remains between yourself, the service and external qualified supervisors unless we feel that you or someone close to you is at risk of significant harm. We do have a legal, moral, and ethical responsibility to you, those around you and the public at all times. If we feel at any time that there is a risk of harm to yourself or others then we may need to break confidentiality in order to protect you, those around you or protect the public. We would usually attempt to discuss our concerns with you first and to gain your consent to share this information. We may also need to release details about you or your sessions to Coroners or Courts if they request it. We would not share your information without a lawful reason to do so. If there is not a lawful reason to share it, then we would not do so no matter who is asking.
In the event that we do need to break confidentiality, we may need to contact a relevant external public service needed to keep you or those around you safe. This may include Police, Social Services, Crisis Services, Emergency Services, or other NHS health providers. When you contact us to book an assessment we will ask you to provide your GPs information. You do not have to give us this information. We do not share information with the GP about the content of your sessions without your permission. If you do not consent to sharing information with the GP, then your GP would not be updated, but this could cause delays in accessing important treatment with the NHS.
Additional Information about Confidentiality for under 18's
General confidentiality of a person in treatment who is under 18 years of age is still applicable, however because they are automatically considered to be vulnerable, there may be more situations where we would need to share information with any of the relevant services listed above or with a parent or caregiver. By contracting our services, the parent or legal caregiver agrees to the Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Confidentiality statement regardless of whether they are paying for the service or a third party is paying. The parent or caregiver should share appropriate privacy policies with the child or young person, helping them to understand what is being agreed. This is especially important for confidentiality because children or young people may share information about unlawful and abusive acts whilst in contact with their therapist. The therapist can never agree to keep such information confidential. It would be explained to the child or young person that we need to share this information, who we need to share it with and why we need to share it to prevent further harm.
If a child or young person shares information which is related to harm to themselves or anyone around them, we would support the child or young person to share this information with their parent or caregiver. As outlined above we may need to break confidentiality in order to protect the child or young person and prevent further harm. Wherever possible we would support the parent or caregiver and child to get access to the most appropriate services who can help. If it is not possible to share this information with a parent or caregiver (for example, sharing it may cause more harm to the child), we would seek confidential advice from Children and Family Services about the most appropriate action to take in the interests of the child or young person.
Third Party Contracts (Charities or Organisations)
It is important that therapy is a safe place for clients to explore their difficulties in privacy. If a therapy service is contracted through an employer, charity or corporation, the person receiving therapy is the client. Their rights are still protected, but we would explain to the employee that we would likely need to share certain information about them to the employer in order to be paid for our services. This would only include whether or not they are attending sessions and the number of sessions likely to be needed. Any other information requested by an employer would need explicit consent from the client before it would be shared. We can provide general advice about typical cases but without consent we cannot discuss any specific, identifying, personal, protected or even public information about our client to an employer. We take the rights of the employee very seriously.
Third Party Contracts (for under 18's)
It is important that therapy is a safe place for clients to explore their difficulties in privacy. If a therapy service is contracted through a parent, caregiver or other loved one, the person receiving therapy is the client. We take children’s rights seriously and always try to ensure that their rights are protected. The child needs consent from a legal parent or caregiver in order to access therapy. The child themselves will also need to consent to therapy. We would explain that we would likely need to share certain information about them to the parent or caregiver in order to be paid for our services. This would only include whether or not they are attending sessions and the number of sessions likely to be needed. Any other information requested by a third party payer would need explicit consent from the client before it would be shared. We can provide general advice about typical cases but without consent we cannot discuss any specific, identifying, personal, protected or even public information about our client unless we have lawful or ethical reasons to break the confidentiality statement above.
Invoicing Terms
Invoices are usually sent on the day of your last session and they are due 5 days before your next session. Should you need to cancel or rearrange an appointment, please get in touch as soon as you know you need to reschedule. If an appointment is cancelled or rescheduled within 48 hours of the session time, then you will still be charged for the session. This is because it is unlikely that the slot can be used by someone else at short notice. This is standard practice within the industry. Sessions that are cancelled or rearranged with more than 48 hours notice will not be charged. Please see Cancellation and Refund Policy.
Your rights
This document does not interfere with your lawful rights as outlined in GDPR legislation. Your rights are listed in our Privacy Policy. We will always consider any request you make regarding your rights under GDPR, but there are instances where invoking your rights would mean we are unable to provide an effective service to you. If we feel that this may be the case or there are any other conflicts between your rights and our duties we would seek advice from the Information Commissioners Office about how to proceed with your request.
Requesting copies of your own record
You have the right to make a request for copies of all of the information we hold about you including session notes. Some of this information may be redacted if giving it to you means breaking the confidentiality or privacy contract with another person. For example if you are accessing a group therapy. Your request should be made in writing (email is fine) and you should be prepared to collect the copies in person, providing ID (it must be photo ID and should have your address). Once you leave our office with the information you have requested, it is your responsibility to keep it safe. We cannot be responsible for data that is lost, stolen or accessed by another person once it has left our premises. You may still access therapies as normal.
Our rights
We reserve the right to decline services or end therapies for any reason. This decision would usually be based on our ability to uphold our duty of care to you. For example we may feel that it is not safe for you to continue therapy with us and therefore we would end your therapy agreement and refund any monies due for sessions not yet attended. We would always discuss this with you first where possible. Please also see our Privacy Policy.
