Published on October 21st 2021

Our Privacy Notice

NHS Relationship Support Service

Tavistock Relationships is committed to protecting and respecting the privacy of our clients. We comply with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulations.

This notice explains when and why we collect personal information, how we use it and how we keep it secure.

We review this policy regularly and where necessary make updates to ensure it accurately reflects how we use your data. We will notify you if there are changes which affect how your data is processed.

We hope this policy helps you to understand how we use your data. If you have any questions, you can contact us by one of the following methods:

By Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,

By Post: Privacy, Tavistock Relationships, 10 New Street, London EC2M 4TP

By Telephone: 020 7380 1975

What information do we collect?

Website and Cookies

Like many other websites, our website uses cookies. 'Cookies' are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual.

More Details

For example, we use cookies to store your country preference. This helps us to improve our website and deliver a better more personalised service.

When you use our website, we obtain information about you from cookies which tell us your IP address, when you visited our website, and which pages you looked at.

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. If you would like to turn cookies off, you can do so by clicking ‘no’ when prompted by our cookie notice. Turning cookies off may result in a loss of functionality when using our website. As an example, if you turn off cookies, some information like anonymised ‘User ID’s’ for logging into systems will not be retained, so you will need to retype them each time.

Cookies are stored for a maximum of two years, though most expire much sooner.

Website enquiries

If you use our website enquiry service, we will ask you to provide us with your name, a method of contacting you and information about your enquiry into our clinical services. We will only use this information to respond to your enquiry. Enquiries are kept for a maximum of 1 year.

Registration

We will collect information from you when you register and when you attend one of our clinical services. We have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data for the purpose of providing you a therapeutic service.

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When you register, we will ask you to provide personal contact details including name and contact information (email address, postal address, and phone number) and your date of birth. We use this information to identify whether you have previously attended therapy with us and to enable us to contact you regarding your therapy. We will also ask you whether you are attending with a partner and whether you have any accessibility requirements, this is to make sure we are prepared for your visit and whether it is a couple or individual consultation.

Professional Referrals

If you have been referred by another professional such as your GP, they may provide the registration information to us on your behalf. In some circumstances the referrer may also include a brief summary of why the referral is being made which, depending on the service, may include sensitive personal data relating to health or sexual relationships. If this is the case, we will write to you to make you aware of the referral to our therapeutic services. We will do this in our first communication to you.

During Therapy

Due to the nature of therapy, during the consultation and ongoing sessions you will discuss with your therapist personal and sensitive information relating to your relationships and your family. Your therapist will record a short summary of each therapy session including any key themes in the therapy. The records may also reference sensitive personal data such as information on health and sexual relationships which is relevant to the relationship therapy. Sensitive and personal information is kept under strictly confidential procedures, designed to satisfy both strict data protection and professional bodies’ regulations.

Research

During the therapy, you will be asked to complete clinical questionnaires which are part of the therapy. Your responses to the clinical measures can also alert your practitioner about issues that may need to be talked about in therapy (such as distressing thoughts or actions).

We have a legitimate interest in research which shows the benefits of couple therapy to funders or to further develop our services.

More Details

Your responses to the clinical measures may be used as part of a class of service user data and would not be used in any way that identifies you as an individual. The answers you give on your questionnaires are entered into a research database along with those from all the other people that have used our clinical services. We do not record your names on this database. We do statistical analyses on this large dataset to see how well we are doing on average. You have the right to ask that your data is removed from this dataset, if you wish.

How long do you keep my data?

The data belonging to clients in our clinical service will usually be retained for 8 years after which time it is confidentially destroyed. In exceptional circumstances, for example where clients return for further therapy, we may retain your clinical information for longer- in which case we will notify you.

Who do you share my information with?

Coming as a couple

If you come as a couple, we would normally expect that information can be shared between you. If you have any questions about confidentiality, you can discuss them with your therapist.

Liaison with other professionals

We adhere to a professional code of ethical standards which includes the principle of confidentiality. This means that we would not disclose information about you to a third party without your agreement, except in situations where there was significant concern about harm to you or someone else or in exceptional circumstances, in which we are legally required to disclose information.

When you register for our clinical service, we will ask you to provide the contact details for your General Practitioner (GP). We do not contact the GP on a regular basis. In some circumstances it may be helpful to contact your GP to arrange better coordinated care. We would usually discuss this with you beforehand.

Funders

This service is funded by the NHS. We are required to provide information on the number of clients we have seen and whether clients have improved as result of attending therapy. No identifiable client information is routinely reported. We may be subject to audits to ensure that we are fulfilling our contractual obligations in a fair and truthful manner.

Marketing

We will never sell or rent your information to third parties for marketing purposes.

How is my personal data stored?

All client records are stored electronically in secure systems only accessible by authorised staff. Personal data is only stored on servers in the UK and Ireland.

Salesforce and SharePoint

Your data is stored in a customer management system called Salesforce which links to our SharePoint data storage site. These systems help us to keep your details up to date and to store your case records securely.

Online Sessions- Microsoft Teams and Zoom

Sessions attended virtually, take place either on Microsoft Teams or Zoom video conferencing platforms. These platforms are secure and provide confidential and reliable sessions on low band-width internet.

Sessions are not recorded unless with the express permission of both the client and the therapist.

We regret we are unable to guarantee complete confidentiality under all circumstances. Monitoring or intrusion by state agencies or by computer service providers operating under state direction may in certain jurisdictions pose a threat to client confidentiality.

When using these platforms, some device information may be collected for technical delivery purposes only. This includes information such as participant name (as entered by the participant when joining the session), device type, IP addresses, network type and geo-location.

Form Assembly

Our clients are asked to complete questionnaires both before and after therapy. We use a platform called Form Assembly to collect this data electronically. When completing your questionnaires, you are asked to use a unique identifier to protect your identity. Once the measures are completed, they are downloaded and deleted from the system.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other third-party websites. This privacy policy applies only to Tavistock Relationships website, and we would ask you to read the privacy policy and notices of any other websites you visit via links from our website.

Your rights

The GDPR gives you certain rights in relation to the data we hold about you. You can exercise the rights by putting your request in writing:

Email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

By Post: Privacy, Tavistock Relationships, 10 New Street, London EC2M 4TP

Under the GDPR you can:

Find out what information we hold about you

Access a copy of the information we hold about you

Rectify any inaccurate or incomplete personal data

Have the right to object to our processing of your personal information

Ask us to delete or restrict how we use your personal information, but this right is determined by applicable law

Have your registration information (if registering using our online booking system) sent to another provider

Have the right to appropriate decision making (TR does not use automated profiling or decision making)

Complain to a regulator if you think we have not complied with data protection laws. You can lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office https://ico.org.uk/concerns/