Introduction
In order to provide you with the best service possible I need to hold your personal contact details and records of your therapy sessions. 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.

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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. In addition, I adhere to the ethical guidelines regarding protecting client privacy and confidentiality set by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).

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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:

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• 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

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I am happy to talk through any questions you might have about my data protection policy, and you can contact me via info@rlacounselling.co.uk.​

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‘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 under registration number ZB683086.

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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:​

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• 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.​

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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 consent initially. I will then retain any counselling records in case of the need to reference them in the future (the official legal basis is to defend against potential legal claims). ​

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How I use your information

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Initial contact
When you contact me with an enquiry about my counselling services I will collect some brief
information to help me answer your enquiry. This will include your name so I can book an
appointment into my calendar and also a contact method, for example an email address or phone
number. Alternatively, your GP or other health professional may send me your details when making a referral or your employer or other trusted individual may give me your details when making an enquiry on your behalf.

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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, please just let me know.

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While you are accessing counselling
Your email address or phone number will be used to communicate appointment times and payment of fees only, including reminders, provided you have given your consent for this, unless we have agreed that I will also use your email address to send you information relevant to your therapy sessions.

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Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. That confidentiality will only be
broken if there are legal or ethical obligations to disclose, for example, if you disclose the abuse/neglect of a child or vulnerable adult, or say something else which implies serious harm to
yourself or others, or a court of law requires me to disclose information. In the event that confidentiality must be broken I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are
safeguarding issues that prevent this.

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I will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling services run smoothly. These
details are kept securely on WriteUpp, a secure cloud-based practice management software system and are not shared with any third party.

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I will keep brief written notes of each session for the purpose of assisting our work together. These notes help me to keep track of the issues we are working on, and they are for my use only. These are kept securely on the same secure, cloud-based software as above. For security reasons I do not retain text messages for more than two weeks. If there is relevant information contained in a text message I will copy the words on to your record in WriteUpp. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after two weeks if it is not important. If email correspondence is deemed important, I will again copy it on to your record in WriteUpp.

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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 client notes ensures I can
continue to offer an efficient service if you contact me again in the future. Once counselling has
ended your records will be kept for seven years from the end of your therapy with me and are then securely deleted. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please let me know.

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Third party recipients of personal data
Sometimes I am required to share limited personal data with third parties in order to provide
therapy services to you and to fulfil legal obligations for tax and accounting purposes. For example, my accountant is permitted access to my invoices. 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 contacted. And I will never pass on your personal information to any third-party organisations for the purposes of sales, marketing or research.

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If your appointments are paid for or arranged via a third party, for example, your employer, the only information shared is your dates of attendance and non-attendance for invoicing and payment purposes. Details about what is discussed in your sessions will remain confidential and will only be shared with your written consent to do so.

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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:

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• give you a description of it and where it came from

• tell you why I am holding it, 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​

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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 info@rlacounselling.co.uk​

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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.

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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.

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Data security
I take the security of the data I hold about you very seriously and as such I take every effort to make sure it is kept secure. My email accounts are password protected and my mobile phone and laptop are password protected. Client information is stored securely using WriteUpp, an online system designed for healthcare and counselling services. All records are stored on secure servers  within the European Union and are protected in line with UK data protection laws. Information is accessed through a secure login and is encrypted when being sent over the internet. No client data is stored on personal computers or devices. WriteUpp uses strong security measures to protect against unauthorised access, data loss, or system failure, helping to ensure that client information remains private and confidential at all times.

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Visitors to my website
When you visit my website, you are consenting to the information collection and use practices
described in this privacy notice. Should you choose to contact me using the contact form on the
website, none of the data you supply will be stored by the website or pass to any third-party
processors. The data will be collated into an email and sent to me over the Single Mail Transfer
Protocol (SMTP). SMTP servers are protected by TLS (sometimes known as SSL) meaning that the email content is encrypted before being transferred over the internet. The email content is then decrypted by local computers and devices.

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I used Wix.com to build my website, which uses cookies and similar technologies to ensure the website functions properly, to keep it secure, and to improve the user experience. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device when you visit a website. Some cookies are essential and are required for the website to work correctly. These may include cookies that support security, page navigation, and accessibility. The website may also use limited analytics cookies provided by Wix.com to help understand how visitors use the site, such as which pages are visited most often. These analytics cookies do not identify you personally.​

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You will be asked to consent to the use of non-essential cookies when you first visit the website, and you can change or withdraw your consent at any time using the cookie settings. Further information about how Wix.com uses cookies can be found in Wix.com's own privacy and cookie documentation: https://www.wix.com/about/cookie-policy​

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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.

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Changes to privacy notice
This privacy notice may be updated from time to time so please occasionally check for any updates.

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Last edited January 2026