At Little Minds Psychology (“LMP”, “we”, “our” or “us)”, we understand how important your privacy is. We take care to maintain your confidentiality in accordance with current data protection laws and ethical guidelines from the British Psychological Society (BPS).

 

It is a professional requirement that attendance records and brief written notes of contact with you are made. These are kept to a minimum and are maintained in accordance with the data protection legislation.

 

We aim to be as clear as possible about how and why personal data about you is used so that you can be confident that your privacy is protected. This policy describes the personal data that we collect when you use our services.

 

The data we collect about you includes:

 

• Your name

• Your contact details including a postal address, telephone number(s) and electronic contact such as email address.

• Your insurance details

• Your GP details

 

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you so that we can provide you with our services. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

 

• to deliver services to you.

• to process your payment for services.

• to verify your identity.

• to contact you and communicate with you in a personal way.

• to provide you with useful information about the services provided.

 

For us to be allowed to process your personal data, we must have a legal basis for the processing. The data protection legislation sets out what these bases are. We rely on the following bases, which apply in different circumstances: legitimate interest, performance of contract, comply with a legal obligation and consent.

 

We normally collect this information directly from you. However, with your permission, we may also collect information about you from third parties (such as your GP or nursery or school setting) to provide a complete assessment.

 

All information about you and your child will be kept on file for at least 5 years after the completion of our work together. After 5 years, information will be deleted in accordance with data protection legislation.

 

We recognise that you may wish to exercise your legal rights to ask about, review, obtain and erase the information we hold about your or your child. Your rights include:

• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request")

• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you.

• Request erasure of your personal data.

• Object to the processing.

• Request restriction of processing.

• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party.

• Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data.

 

If you wish to exercise any of these rights please get in touch.

 

All our records are kept securely. LMP is an independent and confidential form of support. We hold information about the people we work with and the work we do together in confidence. This means that we will not normally share your name or any information about you to anyone outside of LMP without your consent, not even with your GP, school or other services.

 

However, there may be exceptional cases where we ethically or legally have to give information to relevant authorities. For example, if we had reason to believe that someone, especially a child, is at risk of harm, or to prevent a miscarriage of justice. We may also need to share certain information with our professional advisers, such as our insurers or lawyers.

 

We will discuss any proposed disclosure with you unless we believe that to do so could increase the level of risk to you or to someone else.

 

We do offer online appointments, which should take place in a private setting in order to ensure confidentiality. Our online sessions will take place via a third party video conferencing facility, such as Microsoft Teams, using the appropriate levels of encryption and password protection. However, the nature of working online means that we are not able to guarantee complete confidentiality under all circumstances. Further information about online security in the UK can be found on the Information Commissioners Office website: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/.

 

LMP is registered and regulated by the Information Commissioner’s Office. If you have any concerns with your personal data, you can contact the ICO: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/.

We welcome feedback and if you make a complaint, we will always take it seriously as it allows us to improve the services we offer.