Practice Name: Highfield Plains
Data Controller: Rebecca Barnes

Highfield Plains is committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal information with care, respect and confidentiality.

This Privacy Notice explains how your personal information is collected, used, stored and protected in accordance with UK data protection legislation.

1. What Information is Collected?

During your initial consultation and throughout your therapy, I may collect information. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Name
• Date of birth
• Postal address
• Telephone number
• Email address
• Emergency contact details
• GP details
• Medical history
• Current medication
• Lifestyle information relevant to your therapy
• Your therapy goals
• Clinical session notes
• Appointment history
• Payment records

I only collect information that is necessary to provide safe, appropriate and professional hypnotherapy services.

2. Why is Your Information Collected?

Your personal information is collected and processed in order to:

• Provide safe, personalised hypnotherapy sessions.
• Maintain accurate clinical records.
• Communicate with you regarding appointments.
• Manage payments and general practice administration.
• Meet legal, professional and insurance obligations.

The lawful basis for processing your personal information includes:

• Performance of a contract, to provide the hypnotherapy services you have requested.
• Legitimate interests, to maintain accurate clinical records and operate a safe and professional practice.
• Compliance with legal obligations, where applicable.

3. How is Your Information Protected?

Protecting your privacy is an important part of how this practice operates.

To further safeguard your personal information, Highfield Plains uses a paper-only record system with pseudonymisation.

This means:

• Your personal details (such as your name and contact information) are stored separately from your clinical records.
• Your clinical records and session notes are identified only by a Unique Reference Number (URN).
• Paper records are stored securely in locked locations.
• Clinical notes are maintained only as paper records and are not stored electronically.

This approach helps minimise the amount of personally identifiable information attached to your clinical records while maintaining accurate documentation of your therapy.

4. How Long is Your Information Kept?

Your records are retained in accordance with professional, insurance and legal record-keeping requirements.

Adult client records are normally retained for 8 years following your final appointment.

Records relating to clients under the age of 18 are normally retained until their 25th birthday.

Once the appropriate retention period has ended, paper records are securely destroyed using a high-security cross-cut shredder.

5. What Information is Shared?

Your personal information will be treated as confidential.

It will not be shared with third parties without your consent unless:

• disclosure is required by law;
• there is a serious risk of harm to yourself or another person;
• it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; or
• disclosure is otherwise permitted or required under UK law.

Where appropriate, I will discuss this with you before any information is shared.

6. Your Rights

Under UK data protection legislation, you have the right to:

• Request access to your personal information.
• Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information.
• Request restriction of certain processing in appropriate circumstances.
• Object to certain processing where applicable.
• Lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you believe your information has been handled improperly.

Some rights, including requests for the deletion of personal information, may be limited where records must be retained to meet legal, professional or insurance obligations.

7. Contact

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or how your personal information is handled, please contact Rebecca Barnes using the below contact form.