Confidentiality Policy
I have a legal and ethical duty of confidentiality to you which I regard as a central aspect of our work together. I'll seek to protect your privacy at all times.
I won't disclose any information about you or our work with others, except in the following circumstances:
Your Consent - I may disclose information to relevant medical professionals, legal authorities or others that you have requested or agreed I should contact or respond to. Your sessions may be funded by a third-party organisation, such as an insurer or employee assistance programme. In that situation, there will usually be limited appropriate feedback to that organisation, such as information necessary to obtain funding for additional sessions, the contents of a specific assessment form, or other personal data collected in accordance with their instructions. Your provision of that information on that basis represents your consent for me to pass that information to that third party.
Significant Harm/Serious Crime - In certain unusual situations, there may be concerns regarding significant harm being caused to you or another person, or in relation to serious crime. In that situation, I may be legally permitted and ethically required to disclose information about you to the relevant authorities, or other organisation that holds clinical responsibility for you. I have a particular ethical responsibility to consider acting when a child, young person, elderly person or other vulnerable individual has come to harm, or is at sufficient risk of harm. For disclosures of non-recent abuse, we would discuss whether the perpetrator remains a danger to others. There might be an ethical requirement to seek protection for anyone currently at risk, and we would consider how we need to respond to that, while also protecting you.
Compliance with the Law - In certain unusual situations, it is legally compulsory for me to disclose certain information to the relevant authorities. This includes specific legislation relating to terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and road traffic accidents. Disclosure may also be required by a court of law in connection with various matters including serious crime, the welfare of children/young people and financial disputes. Within our work, personal drug use would not fall within the category of drug trafficking, and would not raise confidentiality issues unless it involved an additional issue such as risk to an underage user. Incapacitation - It is possible, though very unlikely, that there might be an occasion when I'm unexpectedly unable to continue our work together, or contact you about this. In this circumstance, I have made provision that a named colleague will, at that point only, be able to access your contact details so that you can be notified and given appropriate assistance. Supervision - It is an ethical requirement for any clinician offering psychotherapeutic or psychological services to have regular clinical supervision with an appropriately qualified senior colleague. Any supervisor used is a registered member of the relevant registering body and works within their ethical framework. However, any information shared about you in supervision will be anonymised, and therefore should not represent a sharing of personal information.
In any instance of disclosure of information about you to other organisations or people, I would:
- Take every appropriate step to discuss the matter with you.
- Explore with you what disclosure you or I might want to make to a third party, and how we could collaborate in that process.
- Seek your permission for any disclosure I might make.
- Only reveal the information that was necessary to respond to the issue in question.
- Not reveal everything you have ever told me.
- Discuss with you any disclosure, made with or without your consent, as soon as possible after the disclosure.
There are certain extreme and unusual circumstances where I might be required to disclose issues relating to suicide risk or other significant threat without your consent. This is very unusual and you can ask me more about the details of when this might be. I'm more likely to disclose my concerns about risk when the situation is urgent, chaotic, unpredictable or unclear - such as receiving an incomplete and concerning voicemail during a period of crisis. In situations where you have provided enough information to cause significant alarm, but it is unclear what you wish me to do in response to the situation, I will in good faith make the best decision I can. I'm less likely to act without your explicit consent when we have discussed and developed a shared understanding of the situation, I have voiced my concerns to you, and you have made your expectations of me clear. This may well take the form of an agreed plan discussed verbally or in writing to know what to do in a crisis.
Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) you have a legal right to access any of your personal data held by me. Further details of my responsibilities to you in regard to your personal data can be found in my Privacy & Data Protection Policy (dan-bracken.com/privacy-policy.
I am always happy to discuss any aspect of this Confidentiality Policy should you have any questions or concerns at any point.