In order to provide you with the best service possible, I need to hold your personal contact details and records of your therapy sessions. This privacy notice outlines the manner in which I will handle your personal information from the moment we first communicate until the end of our therapy. Your privacy is of the utmost importance to me, and you can be assured that your personal information will be kept safely and securely and will only be used for the intended purpose. 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 are all current data protection legislation to which I adhere. I also comply with the ethical standards established by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) with respect to the protection of client privacy and confidentiality.
I collect and use your personal information to provide the highest standard of care and tailored services, ensure safeguarding or public protection, comply with legal requirements, update information, archive data, and address queries, complaints, or claims. This information is essential for understanding your unique needs and offering the most effective therapeutic support. My legitimate interest in collecting this data is to enhance your well-being, as it enables me to make informed decisions that could benefit your mental health. While I acknowledge the potential risks associated with handling personal information, I take extensive measures to ensure confidentiality and protect your data. The benefits of collecting and using this information, such as improving therapeutic outcomes, personalising care, and delivering relevant services, far outweigh any risks. My focus remains on your best interests, and I ensure that the need for information never compromises your privacy or safety. Please see below for the specific information I collect.
Name and surname
Date of birth
Address and contact details
Gender and Pronoun preferences
Next of Kin details, including any support networks
Emergency contact details
Health information (including medical conditions, medical requirements and prescribed medicines that you are taking which might affect your mental health, any previous counselling or psychiatric treatment, details of any ongoing treatment other than medication).
Under UK data protection law, we must have a “lawful basis” for collecting and using your personal information. There is a list of possible lawful bases in the UK GDPR. You can find out more about lawful bases on the ICO’s website.
There are different lawful bases depending on the stage at which I am processing your data. 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 ensures that I appropriately manage any sensitive personal information that you may disclose to me. This category of information is referred to as "special category personal information." The lawful basis for my processing of any special categories of personal information is that it is necessary for a contract with a health professional (in this instance, a contract between me and you) and for the provision of health treatment (as in therapy sessions).
The manner in which I use your data will never utilise your personal data for any purpose other than the administration of the therapy service I am providing to you, which includes the appointment scheduling, cancellation, and rescheduling. I will only retain your personal information for as long as is necessary. This is in line with guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office.
In order to facilitate the processing of your inquiry, I will collect some basic information from you when you contact me to schedule your initial appointment. The information will consist of your name, which will enable me to schedule the appointment in my calendar, as well as a contact method, such as an email address or phone number. In the event that I am unable to attend an appointment due to unforeseen circumstances, this information is requested to make sure that you are informed. You are not required to provide a contact method if you prefer not to be contacted under any circumstances. Alternatively, your employer or a relative may provide me with your information when making a referral or when making an inquiry on your behalf. I will ensure that all of your personal data is deleted within one month if an inquiry is made and you decide not to proceed. Please inform me if you would like me to delete this information sooner.
If you have provided consent, your email address or phone number will be used to send you written confirmation of your appointment times while you are undergoing therapy. I will only use your email address and telephone number to notify you regarding appointment times, unless we have previously agreed that I may also use your email address to send you information that is relevant to your therapy sessions. I will request that you complete a personal details form at the commencement of your initial appointment. This form will include your name, address, date of birth, contact information, and the contact information of your general practitioner (GP). Access to the form is restricted to reception personnel or myself, as it is stored in a locked filing cabinet. Please be aware that I will not routinely contact your general practitioner to inform them of your attendance, as it is considered confidential. To fulfil my duty of care towards you while also maintaining your confidentiality I will only contact your GP if it is necessary and should these circumstances arise, I would discuss this with you wherever possible before contacting your GP.
Rest assured that what is said in our sessions will be kept confidential. I am a member of the British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) and the Association of Christian Counsellors, and I adhere to 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.
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.
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. Your therapy notes are stored separately to your personal details form.
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 password protected file for seven (7) years. This time frame adheres with current industry guidelines.
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.
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 has 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.
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 and have anti-virus software. 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.
By accessing the 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 that you supply will be stored by the website or passed to any third party data processors. Instead, the data will be collated into an email and sent to me over the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). SMTP servers are protected by TLS (sometimes known as SSL) meaning that the email content is encrypted before being sent across the internet. The email content is then decrypted by local computers and devices.
The website uses cookies and Google Analytics. Almost all websites use cookies which are small files that get put on your computer by websites as you surf them. These cookies can store lots of information which can have privacy implications. Google Analytics is a service provided by Google that gathers anonymous data on how people are using websites and then provides visitor statistics, details of page views etc. This service is used by many website owners as the data helps website owners to improve their websites.
Some page elements are embedded from trusted third parties in order to provide you with Interactive Maps. This makes the website more helpful to you as a site visitor however most of these come with their own cookies. This applies to Google Maps. I do not control these cookies so I cannot guarantee what they do. In many cases the cookies are used to generate identical information to Google Analytics and indeed use Google Analytics, so opting-out of Google Analytics will also opt you out of these cookies too. You can opt out of Google analytics and other Google services here – http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout and https://www.google.com/dashboard/.
Under GDPR, 2018 guidelines you have the following rights: The right to request access to the personal information that I store and process about you. You can ask for corrections to be made to the information held or for your personal information to be deleted. You can also ask me to restrict the processing of your personal information or to object to the processing of it altogether in some circumstances. When we use consent as our lawful basis you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.
You can read more about your rights at ico.org.uk/your-data-matters. If you would like to make a request relating to any of the rights above, please send a request in writing by emailing gordica@protonmail.com. Please be aware that in certain situations counsellors may be unable to comply with the above requests. For example, if compelled to retain the records by a court of law. Please also be aware that there may be a charge for complying with a request if it is deemed to be excessive in nature. If you make a request, I must respond to you without undue delay and in any event within one month. To make a data protection rights request, please contact me using the contact details at the end of this privacy notice.
‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person or organisation that collects and stores and has responsibility for people’s personal data. In this instance, the data controller is Gordica Karanfilovska and I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office: the registration number is ZB250876. If you have any questions about this privacy policy or the way in which I handle your personal information you can contact me via email at gordica@protomail.com
If you have a complaint about how I handle your personal data please do not hesitate to get in touch by email at gordica@protomail.com. 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.
The ICO’s address:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
This privacy notice may be updated from time to time, so please check occasionally for any updates.
Counsellor: Gordica Karanfilovska (Paderi)
Telephone: +44 (0) 7743025901
Email: gordica@protonmail.com
Last updated
January 2025