Privacy Statement

Purpose of this Privacy Statement

Dixon Studios Ltd, trading as Emma L Dixon Clinical Psychology, respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data.  This Privacy Statement describes how your personal and sensitive data is collected, handled and stored. I provide Clinical Psychology services, including psychological assessment, therapy and consultation.  I am committed to keeping data only for as long as it is, or might be, required, and to keep it only for the purposes it was intended for. Your information will be collected, managed and stored solely for the purposes of providing you with clinical psychology services.

Data Controller

Dr Emma Dixon is the data controller and any enquiry regarding the collection or processing of your data, please email e.dixon@eldpsychology.co.uk  

Lawful basis for processing personal data 

Under the requirements of the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC) and British Psychological Society (BPS), I am obliged, according to the legitimate interests of provision of psychological services, to keep documentation of your personal information to allow provision of psychological assessment and therapy services. 

Third Party Links

My website may include links to third party websites. Clicking on these links may allow third parties to collect data about you. I do not control these third party websites and would encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit. 

Cookies 

You can set your browser to check or change the type of cookies you accept.  If you do block all cookies you may not be able to access all parts of the website. 

The data I collect about you and how I use it 

Personal data is details about you from which you can be identified, such as your name and contact details. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data). I may collect, use and store different kinds of personal data which I have listed below.

Identity and Contact Data - I will collect details about you from which you can be identified, such as your name and contact details including your telephone number, email address and postal address.  This information will be used to communicate with you about appointments, invoices and provide reports and summaries. 

Sensitive Data - Depending on what services you receive, I will also collect additional sensitive data such as current concerns, background information from home, family, health, educational and developmental history.  This information is used solely for the purpose to inform, facilitate and provide clinical psychology assessment and therapeutic services which are appropriate to your individual needs.

How your personal data is used

I use the information I collect to provide clinical psychology services to you and to process payment of such services. I will only collect information that is needed to provide you with the services you require and will not sell or broker your data. All your data will be treated as confidential and only accessed for the purposes of my work as a Clinical Psychologist. Confidentiality – there will be certain circumstances where I may need to share personal data and sensitive data including if there are concerns of risk of harm to yourself or to another person, there is a legitimate need to know information from another health provider, such as your GP, or when disclosure is in the public interest.  

Your duty to inform me of changes

It is important that the information I hold about you is accurate and up to date.   It is your responsibility to inform me as soon as possible of any of your personal data changes. 

Storage of Personal Data and Data Security

Information about you will be held in the form of notes, emails, questionnaires, letters, reports and invoices. Data which is held electronically is stored on WriteUpp Practice Management Software, a GDPR compliant computer program, secured on a password protected computer. Paper notes and any other paper data will be securely destroyed after uploading to WriteUpp. Personal information is minimised on email and phone communications and any sensitive personal data will be sent as an email attachment that is password protected.  Routine emails will be deleted as soon as practically possible.   

Data Retention and Data Disposal

Information about you will be held for as long as services are being received from myself and I will only retain data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes I collected it for, including legal, reporting and accounting purposes. For persons under the age of 18, personal data will be held until 25th birthday. For all other persons, therapy data will be held for 7 years following the date of last contact with my services.  After these dates all data, paper or electronically held will be securely destroyed or erased.  For tax purposes in accordance with HMRC Tax regulations, your basic information will be held for 6 years, following the date of last contact with me. 

Your Rights

Under certain circumstances, you have the rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.  You have a right to request access to your personal data, to request correction of factual misinformation, or to request to delete personal information before the usual timeframe.  Please note I may not always be able to comply with a request for erasure for specific legal reasons where there are therapy records, which will be notified to you, if applicable.

If you would like to make any request related to the holding of personal information, please email e.dixon@eldpsychology.co.uk . Requests will usually be responded to within 30 days. Specific information to verify your identity may be requested before information can be shared. 

If you are not happy with any aspect of how I collect and use your data, you have the right to contact the Information Commissioner’s Officer (www.ico.org.uk). I would be grateful if you could contact me first if you do have a complaint to see if I can resolve it with you.