Policies
Records and data
A short page about notes from sessions. How I handle contact-form messages lives on the privacy page, so this does not repeat it.
A working draft — not legal advice
This is a working draft for me to review. It is not legal advice. Safeguarding, insurance and data protection should be checked by a qualified person before I rely on this with the people I support.
The privacy page covers most of this
How I handle messages from the contact form — what is collected, why, where it goes, how long it is kept, and how to ask for it to be deleted — is on How I handle your information. This page does not repeat that. A few things on that page are still being decided, and they stay there.
Notes from sessions
Sessions are not NHS clinical notes. I am not writing a medical file. I may keep a brief note after we talk — enough to remember what mattered, so I can pick up next time without making you start again.
That might include your name, when we met, and a few words about what we covered. It is not a diagnosis, a risk assessment form, or a care plan.
What you tell me in a session can include information about health, mental health or substance use. That counts as “special category” information under UK data protection law, the same idea as on the privacy page. I treat it as confidential, with the limits on safeguarding and confidentiality.
How long I keep notes, and where they live
Still being decided
I have not settled on how long I keep session notes, or exactly where they are stored. That will be stated plainly here as a specific length of time, and a simple description of where they live, before I start offering paid sessions.
This is separate from how long I keep contact-form messages, which is also still being decided on the privacy page. I will not invent a period on either page until I have chosen one.