Privacy Notice

Dr Stuart Sadler, Clinical Psychologist provides psychological treatment services based at Newcastle Psychologist & Counselling, Dobson House, Regent Centre, Newcastle upon Tyne NE3 3PF.

This privacy notice provides information about the personal information we process about you as a data controller, in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Appendix I below also contains information regarding the cookies our website might store about you.

My ICO registration number is ZA270509. Associates who work on behalf of Newcastle Psychologist will each have their own ICO registrations number.

Please contact Dr Stuart Sadler at Stuart@newcastlepsychologist.co.uk with any questions or requests about the personal information we process.

Your Rights

We are committed to protecting your rights to privacy. They include:

• Right to be informed about what we do with your personal data;
• Right to have a copy of all the personal information we process about you;
• Right to rectification of any inaccurate data we process, and to add to the information we hold about you if it is incomplete;
• Right to be forgotten and your personal data destroyed;
• Right to restrict the processing of your personal data;
• Right to object to the processing we carry out based on our legitimate interest.

The personal data we process, why we process it, where it comes from and the legal basis for doing so

Assessment/Therapy cases
We process the personal data of individuals who are therapy clients. This might include:

• Names, contact details and dates of birth;
• IP address (if via the website contact box)
• Health information (including GP details);
• Information about race, ethnic origin and sex;
• Information about criminal offences.

Some personal data are provided by health insurance providers. This includes basic contact information, referral information, and health insurance policy number and authorisation for psychological treatment. Some personal data will be collected directly from you and might be via email, contact box on the website, telephone or face to face.

Associate psychologists and associate counsellors taking on referrals from Newcastle Psychologist will be additional data controllers for the clients they work with directly.

Newcastle Psychologist processes this personal data because it is in our legitimate interests as a clinical psychologist to do so. We need to see and use this information to provide psychological therapy to clients.

In relation to any special category personal data, such as health records or information concerning race, ethnic origin, or sex, we rely on this being necessary for the purposes of the provision of health or social care or treatment, in addition to our legitimate interest. This might also include assessment questionnaires, reports and their associated data.

In many cases, an individual has consented to the transfer of their personal data to us. Where an individual has consented, he or she may easily withdraw it by notifying Dr Stuart Sadler at Stuart@newcastlepsychologist.co.uk.

Other personal data
We also process personal data pursuant to our legitimate interests in running our business such as:

• Invoices and receipts;
• Accounts and tax returns;
• Information to help with our marketing (such as how you heard about our service)

Retention period
We will only store your personal information for as long as it is required.

• For assessment and therapy cases, basic contact information held on a therapist’s mobile phone is deleted six months following the end of therapy. This allows us to provide better service for returning clients.
• Some personal data is retained, where necessary, for seven years in compliance with our professional guidelines, accountancy and indemnity obligations. For therapy cases, this personal data might include referral information and therapy records. For assessment cases, this might include psychometric questionnaires, data and reports.

Where it is not necessary to retain personal data, this is destroyed at the end of assessment/therapy for such cases.

Administrative data is retained for up to seven years as necessary, in the event there are queries from HMRC. Where it is not necessary to retain the data for seven years, it is destroyed as soon as possible.

Whom do we share personal data with?
Here at Newcastle Psychologist we take your privacy seriously. We share relevant personal data from your contact with us to our network of associate therapists and virtual assistant(s) working with us (all on a self-employed basis) so we can provide you our core services.  Some of these associates or virtual assistants might be based outside the UK.

Your data will only be provided  to associates and assistants on a strictly need to know and on the basis of minimum information required to successfully deliver our services.

Special category data held electronically is encrypted with restricted access. Hard copy special category and other personal data is stored securely with restricted access in a locked filing cabinet in a secret location away from the clinic without access to others.

We do not share personal data with anyone external to the organisation, without your consent, other than with:

• Health insurance providers for the purposes of billing and to provide treatment updates where necessary for billing;
• Counsellors and psychologists working with Newcastle Psychologist on an associate basis (your consent will be asked before doing this);
• Those who have instructed us to provide psychological treatment, such as a solicitor. In these cases, relevant clinical information from therapy records will be shared with legal services as required and with your written consent;
• Relevant authorities when the information concerns risk of harm to the client, or risk of harm to another adult or a child. We will discuss such a proposed disclosure with you unless we believe that to do so could increase the level of risk to you or to someone else;
• Outsourced service providers such as typing services, pursuant to GDPR compliant written contracts;
• HMRC and VAT Commissioner as they require;
• With others pursuant to a court order.

Information Commissioner’s Office
If you have any concerns about the way your personal information has been processed, please contact Stuart Sadler (below). Alternatively, you may contact the Information Commissioner’s Office on 0303 123 1113.

You are providing your personal data to Newcastle Psychologist and associated therapists with whom you work. The data controller for Newcastle Psychologist can be contacted at:

Email:
Stuart@newcastlepsychologist.co.uk

Post:
Dr Stuart Sadler – Newcastle Psychologist & Counselling
Dobson House
Regent Centre
Gosforth
Newcastle upon Tyne  NE3 3PF.

In cases where other data controllers are involved (such as associate psychologists or counsellors), they can be contacted via their own details provided during at your request.

Appendix 1: Website Cookies

1 What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small amount of data stored on a computer that contains information about the internet pages that have been viewed from that computer. They are commonplace on the internet and are used by websites to improve the user’s online experience by storing information about how the user navigated around and interacted with it. This information is then read by the website on the next occasion that the user visits.

Cookies are sent automatically by websites as they are viewed, but in order to protect a user’s privacy, a computer will only permit a website to access the cookies it has sent, and not the cookies sent by other sites. Furthermore, users can adjust the settings on their computer to restrict the number of cookies that it accepts, or notify them each time a cookie is sent. This should improve privacy and security but will generally meant that certain personalised services cannot be provided, and it may therefore prevent the user from taking full advantage of a website’s features.

For further information about cookies please visit aboutcookies.org.

2. What sort of cookies do we use on our website?

We use two types of cookies: session cookies and stored cookies.
Session cookies expire at the end of the user’s browser session and can also expire after the session has been inactive for a specified length or time, usually 20 minutes. Session cookies are stored in the computer’s memory and are automatically deleted from the user’s computer when the browser is closed.

Stored cookies are stored on the user’s computer and are not deleted when the browser is closed. Stored cookies can retain user preferences for a particular website, allowing those preferences to be used in future browsing sessions.

3. How do we use cookies?

They gather information regarding the visitors to our website on our behalf using cookies, allowing us to understand the amount of traffic to the website and whether they are returning visitors. We do not pass any information to a third party.

4. Can I browse your website without receiving any cookies?

Yes, if you have set your computer to reject cookies, you can still browse the website. However, certain functions may not be available to you unless you enable cookies.

5. How can I find and control cookies?

You can usually adjust for yourself the number of cookies that your computer (or other device, such as a mobile phone) receives. How this is done, however, varies according to which device and what browser software you are using.

As a general rule, the more commonly used web browser software packages ten to have a drop-down menu entitled ‘Tools’. One of the options on this menu is usually ‘Options’ – and if this is selected, ‘Privacy’ is usually one of the settings that may be adjusted by the user. In the case of any device other than a PC (egg and mobile phone) you should always refer to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Alternatively, you may wish to opt-out from only the cookies used by third-party companies (acting on our behalf) to measure the traffic to our site. This has the advantage of leaving other cookies in place, thereby minimising the loss of functionality associated with blocking all cookies.

You may find the following websites useful for information on how to change cookie settings in a range of commonly used browsers:
aboutcookies.org

Please note that we only use cookies for the purpose of enhancing your online experience and no personal data is collected from you through this process.