Privacy Policy

Actualise (“we”), ("us") are committed to maintaining client trust and to protecting and respecting your privacy. This is why we welcome and adhere to the guidelines of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). PECR sits alongside the UK GDPR and provide people with specific privacy rights in relation to electronic communications.

This policy (together with our Terms and Conditions of service and any other documents referred to on it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us.

This Privacy Policy applies to the contents of the website under the domain name https://www.actualisetherapy.co.uk (“website”), ("site").

What are the UK GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) (2018) and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) and how do they affect me?

The UK GDPR replaces the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) (2018) since the UK's withdrawal from the EU. Both EU and UK GDPR laws replaced the 1998 Data Protection Act. The UK GDPR acts to ensure that your personal and sensitive information is kept private, held secure, and is processed in the way that we have agreed. The UK GDPR aims to protect the fundamental right to privacy and the protection of personal data and is there to protect your rights as a consumer of a service that might retain your identifiable information such as: your name, address, phone number, email address. and medical / psychological history. The UK GDPR and PECR also covers therapeutic notes and any correspondence between us and you including text messages, chat messages, Intake Forms, Therapeutic Contracts, Questionnaires, and any emails that we might exchange.

What information does Actualise collect and how do you obtain it?

We receive, collect, and store personally identifiable information (including name, email, phone number); comments, feedback, and testimonials provided to us via the website and via forms provided to you throughout your hypnotherapy programme. Your personal information will only ever be used to correspond with you via the means that you have consented to, to send you forms, information leaflets, voice recordings of your scripts, or to arrange appointments and payments. Your personal information will never be used for marketing purposes, sold, or disclosed to a third party unless it is demanded by law.

Information we may collect from you

We may collect and process the following data about you:

Information provided by you by filling in forms on our website. This includes information provided at the time of of initial enquiry or when engaging in hypnotherapeutic services purchased from us. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our website or in the instance that you are unhappy with an element of your hypnotherapeutic programme.
If you contact us via email, live chat, text, or DM, we will keep a record of such correspondence.
We may also ask you to complete feedback that we use for research and development purposes, although you are not obligated to provide us with this information.
Details of your visits to our website including, (but not limited to), traffic data, location data, and other communication data, and cookies.
We may collect information about your computer, including where available, your Internet Protocol (IP) address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify you individually.
For the same reason, we may obtain information about your general Internet usage by using a cookie file which is stored on the hard drive of your computer. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive and are explained in detail later on in this Privacy Policy.

Where do you store my personal data?

All personal information collected about you, such as name, address, phone number, email, medical history, consultation notes, session notes, messages, texts, conversations, or emails will be stored on a double encrypted platform (Halaxy). By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access

Why does Actualise collect such personal information?

We collect both non-personal and personal information for the following purposes:

To provide and operate counselling and hypnotherapeutic services and to carry out our obligations arising from any Therapeutic Contract entered into between you and us.
To provide our clients with information or services that you have requested from us or that are of interest to you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes.
To notify you about changes to our services.
To provide an appointment service and to notify you if, (on very rare occasions), appointments should need to be altered.
To comply with any applicable laws and regulations.
To ensure that content from our website is presented in the most effective manner for your computer.

How long will Actualise hold my Personal Information for?

We are regulated by the the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS) and the National Hypnotherapy Society (NH), organisations which stipulate that we must retain your data and records for 10 years after the completion of therapy, unless you are a child under the age of 18, in which case the your data will be retained until your 25th birthday. All data pertaining to you will be deleted in the January after the above retention scales. This is in line with NHS regulations and UK GDPR for holding data.

Why does Actualise need to record this information?

We collect information about why you are accessing counselling or hypnotherapeutic services, a small amount of medical and psychological information, and relevant information about your lifestyle and significant others (next of kin, family, friends etc.) alongside brief therapeutic notes. This information allows us to provide an individualised, high quality, bespoke service to you as it ensures that we are equipped with information gleaned from Intake Forms, Questionnaires, and our prior sessions or conversations. This allows us to plan and deliver effective therapy.

Information gleaned regarding your next of kin will never be utilised unless there is a medical emergency during a session or we are worried about your ability to leave a session safely.

What Provisions are made to ensure my Information is held securely?

Hardcopy Documents:

We aim to remain an environmentally friendly business and as such we utilise digital formats for all correspondence such as Therapeutic Contracts, Intake Forms, Questionnaires, information leaflets, treatment sessions, and the provision of individualised voice recordings of your scripts. We may occasionally have to revert to a paper format in the case of technology failure. In these instances, all paper / hard copy documents (if applicable) are stored in a locked cupboard in a locked, private building.

Text Messages:

Mobile devices (phone / tablet) are secured with a 6-digit pin code which is only known and accessed by ourselves.

Emails:

Our email account requires a user name and a password. All emails held by us will be deleted as soon as their content is no longer needed e.g. if an enquiry is not acted upon or your hypnotherapeutic programme has come to an end.

Email Attachments:

Any attachments sent to you by email containing personal, sensitive information are user name and password protected. If necessary, a password would be sent to you via text message to access these documents.

Electronic Documents:

Any electronic documents containing personal or sensitive information are username and password protected, accessed from a personal computer which is only used by us and protected with a 6-digit pin code which is only known to ourselves.

Is everything I disclose or that we discuss confidential?

Everything shared between you and us during any stage of the enquiry, intake, and hypnotherapeutic process is strictly confidential. To ensure that we are supporting you effectively and that we also receive the right support, we may discuss elements of you hypnotherapeutic programme and progress with our supervisor* We are required by our regulator, the National Hypnotherapy Society (HS) to undergo regular clinical supervision both to aid with Continuing Professional Development (CPD), and to maintain our personal wellbeing. During these discussions we do not refer to you by name or disclose any details that may identify you to our supervisor.

*Supervisors are specially trained therapists with whom other therapists can discuss client issues if they wish, but are not obliged to do so. You can opt out of being included in such discussions if you so wish. This would not, in any way, affect your hypnotherapeutic programme.

What happens if I see you outside of Treatment Sessions?

To ensure your confidentiality, if we see each other socially, or outside of our sessions, we will not engage in any conversation regarding your therapy. You are more than welcome to acknowledge and to greet us if you so wish, and we will be more than happy to respond. We will however, never acknowledge or greet you first to ensure your privacy and confidentiality is maintained. You are also more than welcome to talk with other people about the therapy you are receiving.

What if I don't want Actualise to hold my records for that long?

Under the UK GDPR, you can make a request to us, in writing, for all of your personal information and records to be deleted. In this case, we would contact our insurance company and regulatory body and if they agreed to it, all your paper records would be shredded with a cross shredding machine and any electronic data such as emails or text messages would be permanently deleted from the devices they are stored on. We are obligated to save your request for deletion, but would not save any other data about you.

What happens to my information if anything happens to you, the therapist so you cannot continue with my treatment?

In the event of the therapist being incapable of continuing with your treatment, e.g. because of illness or death, you will be contacted by a trusted person (another local therapist) who will also respect rules of confidentiality. You would then be given the options of continuing with this therapist or being put in touch with another therapist to allow the continuation of your sessions.

What happens if you, the therapist, are temporarily incapacitated so you cannot keep an appointment?

If possible, we will contact you ourselves, otherwise a trusted friend (another local therapist) will inform you.

What happens of you, the therapist, die during the period of my treatment or are unable to continue due to serious illness?

All client notes would be transferred to a trusted friend (another local therapist), who would inform you and give you the option of continuing your therapy with her.

What about passing on information to other Health and Social Care Professionals?

As we adhere to the UK GDPR, any contact, relating to you, with other Healthcare Professionals would only be made with your explicit consent, e.g. If we were to write to your GP to notify them of your treatment with us, or to notify them of your treatment ending. This would only be necessary if it seemed that it would be particularly beneficial to you for your GP or other Health or Social Care Practitioner to be made aware of you receiving hypnotherapy with us, or if we need verification that hypnotherapy would be suitable for you.

We may sometimes request that you contact your GP prior to beginning a hypnotherapeutic program with us. This may be necessary if you have symptoms that may be being caused by an underlying or undiagnosed medical or psychological condition and have not received investigation of or diagnosis of such. In these cases, your safety is our paramount concern and we would require verbal or written consent from your GP to begin a hypnotherapeutic treatment program with yourself.

Exceptions:

In order to safeguard you and the people around you, if you were to disclose that you were going to carry out harm to yourself or someone else, then under our Duty of Care, we are obligated by law to inform your GP or the relevant authorities. However, we would always aim to discuss this with you prior to contacting anyone and seek your explicit consent to do so.

If it were the case that we were required by law to disclose information about you, or your therapeutic records e.g. through issue of a Police Warrant or a Court Demand, then by law, we would also have to provide them with the information demanded.

Cookies & Personal Data

Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding how we set cookies on your system's hard drive.

What are Cookies?

Cookies are small, encrypted text files which are placed on your hard drive whenever you browse the internet or visit a website. They are harmless to your computer or electronic device (mobile phone, tablet etc.) and are not used by the website to identify you personally. We want this website to be easy to use, reliable, and relevant to visitor interests so, as is common practice with almost all professional websites, this site uses cookies to improve your browsing experience.

Our use of Cookies

These cookies are placed to improve services for you through, for example:

Providing easy navigation around the site
Ensuring your data security whilst browsing the site
Measuring how many people are visiting the website, so areas of most interest on the site can be identified
Enabling a service to recognise your computer or device so you don't have to give the same information multiple times

You can manage cookies for yourself and learn more about them from:

https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/online/cookies/

Essential Cookies

This website uses cookies for a variety of reasons detailed above. Unfortunately, there are no standard industry options for disabling cookies without completely disabling the functionality and features that they add to this website. Essential cookies are necessary for the vital functions of the website, enabling core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but the website will not function properly without these cookies. It is recommended that you accept all, or all essential cookies if you are not sure whether you need them to provide a service that you wish to use.

Disabling Cookies

You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser (Google, Firefox etc.) You can find help with how to disable cookies on the specific browser that you use. Be aware that disabling cookies will affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit, therefore, it is recommended that you do not disable cookies.

The Cookies We Set

Forms-related / Site preferences cookies

In order to provide you with a great experience on our website we provide the functionality to set your preferences for how this site runs when you use it. When you submit data through a form, such as those found on the Contact page or when providing feedback through the Testimonials page, cookies may be set to remember your user details for future correspondence or interactions with the website.

Third Party Cookies

We also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. The following section details which third party cookies you might encounter through our site.

Google Analytics (Statistics) Cookies:

Our site uses Google Analytics which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solutions on the internet. Google Analytics sets behavioural and analytical cookies to enable the website to provide you with a better service. Behavioural cookies tailor site content to your personal preferences, and past behaviour, or remember your saved settings. Analytical cookies accurately estimate the number of visitors to the website and volumes of usage. Google Analytics stores visitor information in an anonymised form and the cookies used by Google Analytics do not store any sensitive data, or data which identifies you personally.

For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page at:

https://developers.google.com/.../collection/analyticsjs/cookie-usage

Facebook and Instagram

We also use social media buttons and/or plugins on this site that allow you to connect with your social networks in various ways. For these to work, social media sites including Facebook and Instagram will set cookies through this website which may be used to enhance your profile on their site or contribute to the data they hold for various purposes outlined in their respective privacy policies.

Google Ad Words

Marketing cookies are used to track visitors across websites. They enable you to experience more relevant online content and see adverts that are aligned with your interests and past behaviour, or remember your saved settings. The intention is to display ads that are relevant and engaging for the individual user.

How To Delete And Block Our Cookies:

If you want to delete or block our cookies you can do so using your browser’s settings. If you would like detailed instructions as to how to do this, we recommend you take a look at the guides provided by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or those detailed in your handset or tablet manual. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you log on to our site. Your use of our website without modifying your cookie settings means you consent to our use of cookies.

More Information

Hopefully the information contained on this page has clarified what cookies are, why they are set, and their various functions, however, if you would like more information, you can contact us directly or feel free to take a look at: