Who we are

Our website address is: Our website address is: https://couples-counselling-worcester.co.uk.

Our Trading name is Worcestershire Psychological Therapies Ltd

Our Sister site is Worcester Therapy Group

Company No. 8502671

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Your contact information
  • Your name
  • Your date of birth
  • Your Address
  • Your phone/SMS number
  • Email address
Additional information
  • GP name and address
  • Prescribed medication relevant to therapy
  • Medical conditions relevant to therapy
  • Basic Assessment Information

How we store your information

On Paper:

Written notes are at the discretion of each individual therapist and are always anonymised without names, addresses, phone numbers or any identifying information.

On Smartphone:

The Practice Manager and their Clinical Assistant store your telephone numbers in the ‘Contacts’ app on their phones, which enables them to contact you in case of emergencies or to change appointments. This information is backed-up to a cloud based service called PhoneCopy. If the phones are lost or stolen this information will be erased immediately by remote means and restored onto replacement phones through the backup service. These are practice phones only and not used for any other purposes.

In Emails/Texts:

Your email address and correspondence will be stored in the email account managed exclusively by the Practice Manager and their Assistant on both a laptop mail client and a mail app on the practice smartphone. Your telephone number is stored on the practice smartphone together with SMS messages sent/received.

On Our Website:

None of your personal information is stored on our website, other than to momentarily collect & send it to our mail account for the purposes of booking an initial assessment.

Information electronically stored on our secure cloud-based Patient Management System:
  • Name
  • Address
  • Telephone number
  • Email address
  • Date of Birth
  • GP name and address
  • Medical conditions relevant to therapy
  • Prescribed medication relevant to therapy
  • Record of dates and times of sessions
  • Basic Assessment Information (includes details of presenting issues, reasons for referral to individual Associates at the practice etc.
  • Very occasionally, a note may be kept on our secure online Patient Management System of any serious risk issues that might arise. This is only necessary for the purposes of clinical accountability in the event of emergencies.
  • Website contact forms (deleted following assessment or kept for up to 6 months if an assessment isn’t completed)

Who we share your data with and why

Supervision

Your therapist will have regular supervision with an experienced therapist who is a recognised supervisor. Supervision is for the benefit of your therapist’s practice generally rather than for their work with you specifically. In order to protect your privacy, supervisors will not know you personally or professionally. Your therapist will refer to you by your first name, and may refer to your information verbally when it’s helpful to the supervisory process.

Emergencies

If your health is at risk (provided we have your consent) we may share your contact information with an emergency healthcare service (e.g. Mental Health Crisis Team). If we have become aware of your intent to cause harm to another person/organisation (e.g. terrorism), the law may require that we inform an authority without seeking your permission. In such a situation, the law may require that we share your personal information without your knowledge.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue. For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

When you have completed your course of therapy at Couples Counselling Worcester we will erase any information we keep on our online Patient Management System, along with any other electronic correspondence, within 5 years, unless you request otherwise. We allow this period in case you wish to access our service in the future.

You have the following rights:

  • To be informed what information we hold
  • To see the information we hold about you (free of charge for the initial request)
  • To rectify any inaccurate or incomplete personal information
  • To withdraw consent for Couples Counselling Worcester to use your personal information
  • To request your personal information be erased (though we can decline whilst the information is needed for your therapist to practice lawfully & competently)

ICO Registration

We are registered with the ICO – Information Commissioner’s Office Registration No. ZA361433

New clients will be given a copy of this policy in order to sign and agree to our terms of service.