This agreement outlines the terms and conditions under which Dr Richard Jenkinson of Verdure Psychology Ltd. provides psychological assessment and therapy services. By engaging in therapy, you agree to these terms to ensure a safe, effective, and professional therapeutic relationship. Please read this document carefully before commencing therapy. If you are working with a different therapist affiliated with Verdure Psychology, you will enter into a separate agreement with them directly. If you have any questions, feel free to discuss them with your therapist.

In compliance with UK law:

• All information shared in therapy sessions is held in strict confidence.

• Information may only be disclosed:

  • With your explicit consent.

  • Legal Obligations: If required by law, such as compliance with a court order or statutory requirement, we may share your information with the relevant authorities.

  • Insurance Companies: If you are paying for therapy through an insurance policy, we may occasionally provide a brief report to your insurance company (e.g. for the purpose of requesting cover for additional sessions).

  • Safeguarding and Risk: In situations where there is a significant risk to your safety or the safety of others (e.g., abuse, suicidal ideation, public protection concerns, or potential harm to a child or vulnerable person), we may share information with appropriate parties, such as local safeguarding authorities, your emergency contact, the police or crisis services. Wherever possible, we will discuss this with you beforehand and seek to reach a collaborative decision.

  • Supervision: Psychologists are required to have regular supervision to discuss their work with another psychologist. This ensures best practice and supports professional development. These discussions are confidential and anonymised.

  • In the unlikely event you disengage abruptly from therapy without discussing this first: In these rare situations, we would make reasonable attempts to contact you. However, if we are unable to discuss the decision with you (e.g. you don’t respond to our attempts to contact you), we may contact your GP outlining the treatment plan, presenting issues and any concerns or recommendations we may have.

• If you choose to have a session virtually, this will be conducted via Cliniko’s secure Telehealth software. All video calls are secured with end-to-end encryption and meet the same strict privacy and security standards as other Cliniko features (see below). You will receive a link for joining the call via email. These sessions are accessible via a web browser, with no software installation required. Please ensure you have the session in a private place where you will not be overheard

Emergency Contact and GP Details

We require your GP details in order to provide our services in accordance with best practice guidelines. You are also encouraged to provide details for an emergency contact. We would only make contact (with the GP and/or emergency contact) if there was significant concern for your safety (or if you request we keep them informed). In such cases, we may inform them of our concerns and recommendations on a need-to-know basis. As described above, the threshold for informing your GP without explicit consent is lower if you disengage from our service without discussing this with us first (e.g. there might not be evidence of imminent risk but we still have general concerns that we feel your GP needs to know about).

Crisis Support

Verdure Psychology does not operate a crisis service. If you require urgent support between sessions, you can contact:

• • NHS North Yorkshire & York Crisis Line: 0800 0516 171 (if local to York)

  • Samaritans: 116 123

  • Text SHOUT to 85258

  • Dial 111 (Mental Health Option) or 999 for emergencies.

The crisis services listed above are external and not affiliated with Verdure Psychology.

We collect personal information necessary for the provision of clinical services, including but not limited to:

• Name, contact details, and date of birth.

• Medical history, therapy session details, and other health-related information.

• Information about relationships, children, and occupation.

• Health insurance details if applicable.

• Information you provide via email, messaging services, or via our website contact forms.

   

Why We Collect Your Information

We collect and process your personal information for the following purposes:

1. To conduct initial consultations, assessments, and therapy sessions.

2. To administer and improve our services.

3. To communicate with you about appointments and services, including sending reminders.

4. To comply with legal and professional obligations, including record-keeping.

5. To assess and deliver psychological interventions, and monitor and attempt to mitigate any risk issues.

    

How We Store Your Information

Your personal data is securely stored using the following platforms:

• Cliniko: A clinical practice management system with advanced security features, including HTTPS for encrypted data transmission, AES-256 encryption for data at rest, and daily backups.

• Healthcode: If you pay via an insurance policy, essential data (e.g., name, address, D.O.B, policy details) is stored securely via Healthcode (a system private practitioners use to invoice insurance companies). Healthcode complies with ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and employs robust encryption measures and access controls.

• Email Communication: Emails sent to us and from us are stored securely on the servers of our hosting provider (currently ProtonMail). Protonmail encrypts emails in transit but sensitive data (e.g. a therapy progress report) will also be password protected. Emails are retained for up to one year to facilitate communication and for reference. Relevant information from email correspondence may be added to your clinical record, which is stored in our secure practice management system (Cliniko).

Heidi Health: An AI digital transcription service is occasionally used to draft session summary notes. Heidi Health transcribes key information provided in sessions in real-time. Therefore, there are no voice recordings stored in any location, and the written transcripts are deleted immediately. The clinician amends the draft clinical note and stores this via Cliniko (see above). Heidi Health is GDPR complaint. Their privacy policy can be viewed here. Please let us know if you do not consent to this (or any other part of this agreement).

All data storage complies with GDPR and UK Data Protection Act 2018 requirements.

Data Retention

In line with professional regulations, we retain your personal data on Cliniko as follows:

• Adults: For seven years after the last contact.

• Minors: Until their 26th birthday or seven years after the last contact, whichever is later.

If no follow-up appointments are booked within six weeks of the last contact, your data will be archived, and we will assume you no longer wish to be contacted. Archived data will be deleted in accordance with the timescales referenced above.

Your Data Protection Rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

• Your right of access: You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.

• Your right to rectification: You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.

• Your right to erasure: You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.

• Your right to restriction of processing: You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

• Your right to object to processing: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

• Your right to data portability: You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. You can exercise these rights by contacting us via email or post. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. Please contact us at [email protected] if you wish to make a request.

All our treatments rely on informed consent. Therapy will only proceed if you are willing and able to engage voluntarily. We do not work with individuals under coercion or those unable to provide informed consent.

For young people aged 16–17, consent for therapy is typically presumed unless evidence suggests otherwise. For younger children, parental consent is required, but the child must also agree to participate in therapy.

• Sessions are scheduled for 60 minutes (except assessments which are 90 minutes).

• If you are late, sessions will still end at the pre-agreed time.

• Cancellations with over 24-hours notice can be rescheduled at no additional cost.

• Cancellations with less than 24-hours notice may incur a 50% charge unless there are exceptional circumstances (e.g. illness, family emergency).

• If your therapist needs to cancel (e.g., illness), you will be offered a rescheduled appointment.

• If paying via an insurance policy, we will invoice the insurer directly after each session. The fee we charge insurers is typically £120 per session. However, there may be variations in fees depending on the agreement we have with the insurance company. You will be informed if we charge a non-standard rate to your insurance provider. Please note, it is your responsibility to check whether an excess payment will be charged by your insurer and to be aware of your policy renewal date (as an additional excess could be due if your policy renews during the course of treatment). This information is specific to your policy and kept confidential by your insurer (so we cannot check on your behalf). Once we invoice your insurer after the first 1 -2 sessions, they will usually withhold the amount of your excess and advise us to invoice you directly for this amount.

• Each self-funded therapy session costs £120 (assessments are £150). Payment is required prior to each session via the online booking system or following receipt of an invoice (Net 30). We require invoices to be paid before we can provide subsequent sessions.

• Payment details will not be used for any purpose other than processing fees.

• Please note that late payments may incur an additional fee. If payments are consistently missed, Verdure Psychology reserves the right to discontinue services until outstanding balances are settled. We will communicate with you regarding any payment issues to find a resolution before taking further action.

• Therapy is a collaborative process requiring your active engagement both during and between sessions.

• Regular attendance is important for progress.

• If therapy is assessed as unsuitable or unsafe (e.g., escalating risk or persistent absences), Verdure Psychology reserves the right to discontinue sessions. This will be discussed compassionately, with onward referrals offered where appropriate.

• It’s important to note that therapy outcomes can vary based on individual circumstances. While many clients find therapy beneficial, progress may differ from person to person. Your active participation and commitment are key factors in achieving desired outcomes, and your therapist will work collaboratively with you to support your goals.

• You may discontinue therapy at any time but are encouraged to discuss this decision with your therapist to ensure a managed ending. If you do not attend therapy for 6 weeks or more, and do not contact us or respond to our attempt(s) to contact you to within this timeframe, we will assume you have decided to discontinue therapy. We would only make further attempts to contact you if we were concerned about significant risks. In this scenario we might also consider informing your GP.

Aggressive or inappropriate behaviour, or attending sessions under the influence of drugs/alcohol, may result in immediate discontinuation of therapy.

Limitations of Assessment and Therapy

• • Practitioners affiliated with Verdure Psychology are trained in multiple therapeutic models and are therefore typically able to offer therapy to the majority of people they assess. However, the recommendations that follow an assessment or formulation cannot always be predicted in advance. This means that, although you may attend an assessment with particular hopes or expectations, the outcome may indicate that a different type of support would be most beneficial. In some cases, this may include recommending an intervention that Verdure Psychology does not provide, in which case we would advise seeking support from an appropriate alternative provider. While this can understandably feel disappointing for some, our recommendations must be guided by what the assessment suggests is clinically most helpful.

  • As a small, independent practice, therapy is offered at a maximum frequency of one session per week, and we are not able to provide support between sessions. For this reason, the service is not configured to support clients with complex needs and/or significant risk issues. For example, if someone is experiencing suicidal ideation or requires a higher intensity of care than we can safely provide, we would recommend support from a Multi-Disciplinary Team, usually within NHS services, to help ensure their safety. While some individuals may feel reluctant to pursue this route, we may still need to make such recommendations where this is clinically indicated.

  • We are committed to being supportive, compassionate, collaborative, and respectful of past experiences, including any previous difficulties you may have had with other services. At the same time, we need to work within clear professional boundaries and alongside appropriate services when higher levels of support are required. Very occasionally, if therapy does not appear to be helping or is no longer clinically appropriate, we may need to review whether continuing is in your best interests. Where possible, this would always be approached thoughtfully, transparently, and with an emphasis on support and onward planning, and we would only ever provide an intervention if we felt it was genuinely helping.

  • In rare occasions in which we do make a referral to another provider or service, we aim to make our recommendations as realistic and pragmatic as possible. Where appropriate, we will provide support to act on these recommendations. However, we cannot control how recommendations are implemented by other organisations, and therefore cannot guarantee that this will result in the provision of a particular type of support.

• You can choose how confidential information (e.g., therapeutic letters) is shared:

  • Via email

  • Via recorded post

• Your contact details will only be used for purposes directly related to therapy and will not be shared for marketing purposes.

• If you wish to change your contact preferences, please notify us in writing. We will update your preferences promptly, typically within 5 working days, and confirm the changes with you to ensure your confidentiality is maintained.