Your privacy and confidentiality are paramount. All information shared during our work together is treated with the utmost discretion and protected under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), Data Protection Act 2018 and BACP Ethical Framework confidentiality standards. There are limited circumstances where I am legally required to break confidentiality, including serious risk of harm to yourself or others, child protection concerns and court orders or legal requirements.

Financial records (your name and payment details, for invoicing and tax purposes) are kept entirely separate from clinical records. Any bookkeeper or accountant supporting my practice will see payment information only — never session content or clinical notes.

I keep brief clinical notes after each session to support continuity of care and my clinical supervision. Notes record the themes and content of our work, not a verbatim transcript and are kept proportionate to what's clinically useful. They're stored securely and separately from your name and contact details, retained for 7 years after our work together ends — in line with BACP guidance and standard UK limitation periods — then securely destroyed.

You have the right to request a copy of your notes at any time (a Subject Access Request under UK GDPR). In rare circumstances — such as a court order, a safeguarding referral or a police investigation — I may be legally required to disclose notes to a third party even without your consent. If you raise a complaint with BACP, I may also be required to share relevant notes with them as part of their Professional Conduct Procedure, as a condition of my membership. Where I'm able to, I'll tell you if any of this happens.

I am registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) as a data controller, in line with my obligations under UK data protection law.

I maintain clear professional boundaries to ensure a safe and effective working relationship. Our relationship is professional and focused on your wellbeing. I do not engage in dual relationships (e.g., being both coach and friend), limit contact outside of scheduled sessions to administrative matters, maintain appropriate physical and emotional boundaries and do not provide coaching or counselling to friends, family or people I have personal relationships with.

I keep my personal and professional presence separate, including on social media. I won't connect with current or former clients on personal accounts, to protect the integrity of our working relationship.

I'm committed to working with every client with equal respect, regardless of race, disability, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or belief or any other protected characteristic. Discrimination has no place in this work and I actively reflect on my own practice — including in supervision — to make sure that commitment is upheld.

Before we begin working together, you will receive clear information about my qualifications, experience and approach to coaching and counselling, what to expect from our sessions and the coaching/counselling process, fees, cancellation policies and session arrangements, your rights including the right to withdraw at any time, confidentiality and its limitations and how complaints will be handled.

If you have a concern about our work together, I'd welcome the chance to address it directly first. If a concern remains unresolved, you also have the right to raise a formal complaint with the BACP through their Professional Conduct Procedure.

Whilst coaching and counselling can be powerful tools for personal growth and wellbeing, they have limitations. I do not provide medical diagnosis or treatment, prescribe medication, provide crisis intervention or emergency mental health support or replace psychiatric or psychological treatment when needed. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis or suicidal thoughts, please contact the Samaritans at 116 123 (available 24/7) or visit www.samaritans.org.

I engage in regular clinical supervision with a qualified supervisor. This ensures quality and effectiveness of my practice, ongoing professional development and learning, accountability to professional standards and support for complex or challenging situations. Supervision is confidential and may involve discussing anonymised case material — never your name or identifying details.

I hold professional indemnity insurance appropriate to my practice, as required by the BACP Ethical Framework. This protects both you and me in the event of a claim relating to my work.

Your personal data is used solely to respond to your inquiry, provide coaching or counselling services and communicate with you about your engagement with Vertex. We will never share your data with third parties without your explicit consent, except in rare circumstances required by law — such as a court order, a safeguarding referral or a police investigation — or if BACP requires relevant notes as part of a Professional Conduct Procedure, as a condition of membership. Where I'm able to, I'll tell you if this happens. See the Ethics page for full detail. Your data is processed only for the purposes you have provided it.

Our lawful basis for this processing is your consent, given when you submit our contact form or email us directly. We do not carry out automated decision-making or profiling using your data.

Booking a call uses Calendly, and our contact form uses Netlify Forms — both process the data you enter (such as your name and email) on our behalf to deliver these features. Neither is used for marketing or shared onward. Calls themselves take place over Google Meet, which processes your call audio and video on Google's servers in the US. This is covered by the UK-US Data Bridge, a recognised legal basis for this kind of transfer.

Your data is stored securely using industry-standard encryption and security measures. Enquiries that don't lead to ongoing work are deleted after 12 months. If you become a client, brief clinical notes are retained for 7 years after our work together ends, in line with BACP guidance and standard UK limitation periods — see the Ethics page for detail. Outside of that retention period, you have the right to request deletion of your data by contacting privacy@vertex-nd.co.uk.

This website is hosted by Netlify, which may process technical data such as IP addresses as part of standard hosting infrastructure. Email sent to our published addresses is forwarded via Squarespace, our domain provider. Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which may also process your IP address.

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to access, rectify, erase and port your personal data. You also have the right to object to processing and to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The right to erasure doesn't apply to clinical notes during the 7-year retention period described under Data Storage & Security, where we have a professional and legal obligation to keep them — but it applies to enquiry data and anything outside that period. To exercise any of these rights, please contact privacy@vertex-nd.co.uk with your request.

Where we rely on your consent to process your data, you can withdraw that consent at any time by contacting us. This will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before withdrawal.