Now take a breath understands how important your privacy is. We take care to maintain your confidentiality in accordance with current data protection laws (GDPR, 2018) and the ethical guidelines of the HCPC and British Psychological Society (BPS). These guidelines have been set up to protect your confidential material and ensure that your therapist always conducts themselves with professionalism and integrity.
In order to provide you with the best service possible, now take a breath will hold your personal contact details and records of your therapy sessions. Please find below important information about how this information will be held and used.
Your personal information
Now take a breath uses the secure, encrypted and password protected practice management platform, Kiku (wearekiku.com) to collect and store your personal data. At the point of booking your initial consultation, you will be asked for your personal contact information, for example your name, address, email address and telephone number and you may also choose to share details of the issues you are looking for help with.
Your contact information is stored securely in Kiku and can only be accessed by your therapist and administrator.
In order to be able to fulfil our duty of care to you, prior to your initial consultation or first treatment session, we will ask you for contact information for your GP and elected Emergency Contact person. These details will be stored securely in Kiku and will only be accessible to your therapist and administrator.
This personal information will be held for the duration of your therapy after which it will be deleted from our Kiku database.
Please note that Now take a breath will need to keep a record of your name and client reference number for seven years after the end of your therapy, so that we can respond effectively to any potential requests regarding your clinical notes and treatment.
Now take a breath will never pass on your contact details to any third party organisations for the purposes of sales, marketing or research and will never use your personal data for any purposes other than the administration of the counselling service we are providing to you including to arrange, cancel and rearrange appointments and collect payment for sessions.
Online Bookings
When you make an online booking or payment, Kiku will send a booking notification to your therapist via email and the Kiku messaging system.
Anonymised payment details are recorded in our Kiku financial income reports. These reports will only hold your first name, last name initial and unique client reference number. The HMRC requires that we retain this information for 5 years after the end of the financial year.
You can view Kiku’s privacy policy here – https://www.wearekiku.com/privacy-notices
Now take a breath website uses cookies as outlined by WordPress. You can find the details of the cookies here https://en-gb.wordpress.org/about/privacy/cookies/
Your payment details
All payments made through Now take a breath website are made through the secure Stripe Connect server. Now take a breath website therefore does not hold your payment information. Where you have made payment for your session over the phone, we will never keep a record of your card details. Your information is inputted directly into the card payment portal and no written record will be taken. Where you pay through BACS transfer only your name, the date of the payment and the amount is recorded.
Your therapy sessions
Everything that you discuss with your therapist is confidential. Confidentiality will only be broken if there is concern about your safety or the safety of someone else or we are instructed to do so by a Court of Law. Your therapist will always endeavour to speak to you about this first.
During remote working your therapist will ensure that they are conducting online and telephone sessions in a quiet, private and confidential setting. We have selected video calling platforms that offer end to end encryption to ensure maximum privacy. Please note however that we cannot be held responsible for any breaches that occur due to failures in this technology.
Your therapist discusses their clinical work with a supervisor. This is to ensure that they are offering you the best service possible. These conversations are bound by confidentiality and you will only be referred to by your first name.
Your therapist will also keep notes of each session. These are anonymised and are stored within a password protected file within the secure Kiku system (wearekiku.com). These notes are for your therapist’s use only and help to keep a track of everything that is being discussed. In line with industry guidelines, these notes will be kept securely for up to seven years after your therapy comes to an end. After this time, they will be confidentially destroyed.
If your sessions are paid for or arranged via a third party, (e.g. your employer, a friend, or a family member), other than payment requests, invoices or receipts your counselling information will not be shared. Details about what is discussed in your sessions will remain confidential between you and your therapist. Any other information can only be shared if you provide your written consent.
Your communications with us
All of our email accounts are password protected. If you send an email to your therapist’s email address, only they will have access to it.
All phones, tablets and laptops used to respond to your emails are encrypted, fully protected with anti-virus software and password protected.
Data Usage
Now take a breath will only use your email address and telephone number to contact you about your appointments. Your therapist may also contact you directly via email in order to share information with you that is pertinent to your therapeutic process.
Your phone number may also be used to issue appointment reminders via text message. You can opt in or out of text updates using your free Kiku account.
Marketing
Now take a breath will ask if you would like to receive email communications from us in the future about new services or products from Now take a breath that may interest you. Your service will not be affected in any way by opting out of receiving these emails. Your contact details will not be shared with any third parties.
Your rights
Any personal data retained by our service is kept in accordance with the GDPR, 2018.
Under these guidelines you have the following rights
The right to request access to your data
You can request to view the information that we hold about you (contact details, appointment logs etc.) at any time. If during therapy you would like to see your session notes, please make this request to your therapist directly. Should you require a copy of your notes after your therapy has come to an end you can make this request by emailing info@nowtakeabreath.co.uk or calling 07555 601324.
The right of rectification
At any point during your time using our service or during the seven years thereafter, while we retain your records, you have the right to request amendments to your contact details or session notes. This right can be exercised either by speaking directly to your therapist or by contacting us in writing.
The right to be forgotten
You can request that we delete and confidentially destroy the information that we hold about you and your sessions at any time. This request can be made by contacting us at info@nowtakeabreath.co.uk
Instances where we would not be able to comply with your request are as follows:
a) It is necessary for us to retain these records in order to continue providing an effective service
b) We are compelled to retain these records by a Court of Law
c) We require these records in order to establish, exercise or defend legal claims
Consent
When you book your first session with us via Kiku, you will be asked to provide a digital signature and tick a checkbox to confirm that you consent to the storage and processing of your personal data for the purposes of providing therapeutic services.
You are entitled to withdraw this consent at any time and can do so by emailing us at info@nowtakeabreath.co.uk
Breaches of data protection
In the event of any breach of our data protection policies, we will notify you and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) within 72 hours and will seek to rectify this immediately.
Raising concerns
Should you have any concerns about our data protection practices, you can raise these directly with your therapist. You can also notify the Information Commissioner’s Office. We are registered with ICO under the reference number ZB297666.
Visitors to my website
When someone visits the Now take a breath website, a third party service is used, google analytics 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. We do not make, and do not allow Google Analytics to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website. We use legitimate interests as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information in this way when you visit our website. We use google analytics so that we can continually improve the service to you, You can read Google Analytics privacy notice here https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB . Now take a breath uses Word Press as the content management system for our website – find out about Word Press and data protection https://en-gb.wordpress.org/about/privacy/ . Like most websites we use cookies to help the site work more efficiently – find out about our use of cookies. https://en-gb.wordpress.org/about/privacy/cookies/ No user-specific data is collected by us or any third party. If you fill in a form on the website, that data will be temporarily stored on the web host before being sent to us.