Therapy Terms & Agreement

The Parenthood Psychology Practice Therapy Terms

These Therapy Terms are the standard terms which apply to the services we provide to you or your child (known as the “Services”), by us, The Parenthood Psychology Practice (trading name of Dr Lucy Wilcoxon) (known as the “Practice”, also referred to as “us”/”we”/”our”). These terms also apply to services provided by other practitioners working with Dr Lucy Wilcoxon.

Please read these Therapy Terms carefully and sign at the end to indicate your acknowledgement and acceptance. If you have any questions on any part of this document, please do not hesitate to ask before signing.

Professional Information:

Dr Lucy Wilcoxon and all Clinical Psychologists working at the Practice are registered with the United Kingdom’s Health and Care Professions Council, (HCPC). All Clinical Psychologists practising within the UK must be registered with the HCPC. In order to maintain their practising registration, all Clinical Psychologists must continue to demonstrate compliance with a range of HCPC minimum standards of conduct, performance and ethics. www.hcpc-uk.org.

All Services offered by the Practice are delivered under the regulations in law as specified by the HCPC in the United Kingdom.

Dr Lucy Wilcoxon is also chartered by the British Psychological Society (BPS) https://www.bps.org.uk and abide by their code of Ethics and Conduct, https://www.bps.org.uk/news-and-policy/bps-code-ethics-and-conduct. This is not a requirement for all Clinical Psychologists to practice, and therefore others working within our services may choose not to register with the BPS.

We may engage associate clinical psychologists to carry out some of the work involved in providing our Services. These associates are qualified professionals who adhere to the same professional standards and confidentiality obligations as our in-house clinical psychologists. Rest assured that all associates are registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). By engaging with our Services, you consent to the potential involvement of associate clinical psychologists in your care. If you have any questions or concerns about this, please feel free to discuss them with us.

Consultations and Appointments:

Consultations shall be by appointment only. Details of the consultation timings, length and fees shall be made available to you in advance of the consultation. For therapy, our usual practice involves a longer initial assessment appointment (approximately 90 minutes), followed by therapy sessions at 50 minutes each. This is changeable based on individual need.

Initial appointments can be made by emailing or telephoning the practice.

Subsequent appointments can be made during your consultation with us or by telephone, email, text message or WhatsApp.

We will work together with you to aim to find structure for regular time slots which suit both yourself and the practitioner.

If you know you are going to be late for an appointment, you should contact us to tell us. If you arrive later than 15 minutes after an appointment time, we will try to provide the Services you have booked but if we decide that we cannot, the appointment will be treated as cancelled without notice by you and you may be charged (See Cancellations below). This is the case no matter whether the appointment is for a face to face, online, or telephone session.

Session format:

During the assessment, we will discuss and agree if we are the right service to meet your needs. We will aim to consider the likely frequency, length of and duration of sessions required. Please note this is subject to change dependent on how the therapy progresses, and will always fall in line with clinical need. Appointment times and agreed holiday dates will be discussed.

You may be asked to complete brief questionnaires to support your care; this allows measure of your symptomology over time. This is entirely voluntary, and non completion will not affect the care you receive.

It is important that therapy should end with a planned session where possible, therefore this will be discussed early on in our agreement.

Online Sessions:

Sessions may be provided online via a pre-agreed livestream service (for example Zoom, Teams, WhatsApp, Skype).

Therapy sessions held online will require use of a camera and audio in order to create a similar experience of being ‘in the room’ together. This is to offer you the best experience of therapy possible within a virtual format.

When using a third-party supplier for online sessions your personal and special category data will be treated in accordance with our Privacy Policy, and may be subject to the privacy policy of the third-party supplier. We will not be liable to you for any costs or losses incurred by you as a result of using any third-party online provider for the purposes of attending a session virtually with us. You should make yourself familiar with such providers' own terms and conditions and privacy policy.

Ahead of your online session, we ask you to plan where in your location you will sit for the meeting. It is important that the connection to the internet is as strong as possible. Due to the virtual nature, you will be responsible for ensuring you are in a safe, comfortable and confidential space where you are able to engage in the session.

It is important that you ensure the space is private and that you cannot be interrupted or overheard. You are strongly encouraged to make any necessary arrangements with anyone you may normally share the location with to ensure that your protected space can be achieved.

We will endeavour to wear headphones during online sessions, and you may wish to do the same. Wearing earphones attached to your mobile, laptop or tablet device is helpful in blocking out “feedback” noise and ensuring extra privacy.

In order to meet virtually, you must have access to the necessary hardware, software and reliable internet access. You are responsible for making all arrangements necessary for you to have; (i) downloaded and have access to the programme used to host the call; and (ii) ensuring your internet connection will allow you to access the meeting and is sufficiently reliable for the duration of the session.

We will not be responsible for delays in commencing sessions or interruptions to sessions caused by problems with the application used to host the session. We will not extend a therapy session due to problems with your internet connection or hardware which affect your ability to connect to the session.
You are responsible for being on time to your therapy session. At times the session may be interrupted by technical glitches which are beyond the control of either you or us. If the session drops out we will try to reconnect the session for the next 10 minutes. If we are unable to do so due to technical issues, the session will continue by telephone.

If we provide any of our Services as a livestream, we will use all reasonable endeavours to start at the time scheduled. If the start is delayed by circumstances beyond our control, we will not be liable for any such delay.

In some limited circumstances, we may need to suspend the provision of an online session for one or more of the following reasons:

(i) To fix technical problems or to make necessary technical changes; or

(ii) In the event of illness or other circumstances beyond our control.

In the event of any of the circumstances listed above occurring, then we will use reasonable endeavours to give as much notice as possible to you.

Recording of sessions:

To maintain our high-level professional accreditations, at times we are required to audio or video record some therapy sessions to be discussed within our clinical supervision. It is important to note that there is no expectation or requirement for you to agree to this, but please let us know if you would feel happy for your session to be recorded for this purpose.

We may also be required to record sessions as part of training, or seeking accreditation in particular therapy modalities. We will discuss this directly with you and request specific consent should this be relevant to your care.

Declining involvement in recording sessions for any purpose will not influence your care.

We are occasionally asked by clients if they can record our session to listen again in their own time. In most circumstances this will be fine, but please note that you must gain our written consent in advance. Clients are not permitted to record sessions without receiving our written consent. This applies to any form of recording device including phones and live Skype/Facetime/Zoom/WhatsApp/Teams etc.

Where sessions have been recorded, clients are not permitted to share, broadcast, distribute or make available online the recordings without our written consent. If you would like to share the recording with someone (e.g. a family member, partner) please discuss this with us.

Cancellations:

You have the right to cancel your appointment within 14 days of booking if it was arranged online, in compliance with the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. If your appointment is scheduled to begin within this 14-day period and you request immediate provision of services, you acknowledge that your right to cancel will end once the service has commenced.

Appointments cancelled more than 48 hours before the scheduled appointment will not be charged.

For cancellations made with fewer than 24 hours' notice, a full session charge will apply.

Cancellations made with 24 to 48 hours' notice will incur a charge of 50% of the session rate.

This policy applies to face-to-face, online, or telephone sessions.

Please note that if you cancel within the 14-day cooling-off period and the service has not yet commenced, no cancellation fee will apply.

If, due to exceptional circumstances you cancel an appointment without giving at least 24 hours prior notice we will consider the circumstances and in our discretion decide whether to waive any charges.

We will always try to arrange for another client to attend to avoid you having to pay the cancellation fee. However, it is not usually possible to book another patient at such short notice. If you cannot attend in person, an online or telephone consultation will be offered instead.

Where funding is via a health insurance company, your employer or is provided as part of a legal process, cancellations with fewer than 48 hours’ notice, or failures to attend are likely to be counted as one of your designated appointments. You should check with your health insurance policy to ensure you know when they will and will not cover your costs.

We may cancel an appointment booked by you at any time before the time and date of that appointment in the following circumstances:

The required personnel and/or required materials necessary for the provision of the Services are not available; or
An event outside of our reasonable control occurs.

If we cancel an appointment in such circumstances, we will refund to you in full any advance payment that you have made to us for that appointment.

We reserve the right to cancel an appointment, or an ongoing therapy agreement, at any point if the client behaves inappropriately, as determined by the practitioner (e.g. aggressive or threatening behaviour). Fees will apply as per the timings outlined in the cancellation terms.

We will use all reasonable endeavours to start appointments at the time you have booked, but the start may be delayed by the overrun of a previous appointment or by other circumstances. If the start is delayed by us by 30 minutes or more you may cancel the appointment and we will refund you in full any deposit or other advance payment that you have made to us for that appointment.

If we are prevented from or delayed in performing our obligations by your act or omission or by any circumstance outside our control, we will not be liable to you for any costs, charges or losses sustained or incurred by you that arise directly or indirectly from such prevention or delay.

Leave

Where possible, we will aim to give you as much advanced notice of any planned leave dates when our Psychologist(s) will be unavailable.

We would ask you to also provide us with advanced notice of periods of holiday, or periods of time where sessions are not required.

Third-party venues:

If Sessions are held in person at a third-party venue, you agree to comply at all times with that venue’s policies and rules about that venue (particularly fire safety and health and safety rules).

You are responsible for your own belongings that you take to a Session. We will not be liable for any loss, damage, theft or destruction of any of your belongings.

Fees & Payment:

You must pay for all Services in accordance with our current price list before completion of provision of those Services.

Payment of our fees will be due or invoiced before the end of a consultation. We request all fees to be paid in advance of the session to secure the appointment.

Payments can be made individually or in blocks based on prior arrangement.

You may pay us for Services (and for any deposit or other advance payment on account of that payment) by BACS transfer to the following account:

Name: Dr Lucy Wilcoxon

Bank: Starling Bank

Sort Code: 60-83-71

Account Number: 11335015

Clients are requested to use the reference number on the invoice, so that the payment can be easily identified.

All prices of Services are exclusive of VAT (which is not chargeable unless we notify you otherwise).

We may alter our prices at any point. Any changes will be made with a minimum of 1 month notice.

Chasing unpaid invoices attracts an administration and interest charge of 8% above the Bank of England base rate from the due date until the final settlement date. We may suspend the provision of our Services to you in the event that any due fees remain unpaid. We may also pursue legal advice in the case of unpaid invoices.

Medico-Legal Funding:

For clients attending therapy as a result of a personal injury or medical negligence claims process, funding will normally be provided via their legal representative. We will invoice and collect payment from the legal representative unless otherwise agreed.

We will invoice for missed or late-cancelled (fewer than 24 hours’ notice) appointments unless under exceptional circumstances. Payment for cancelled appointments or for any failure to attend without prior notice may be the client’s own responsibility. We advise Medico-Legal clients to check with their legal representative what the arrangements for payment are in the event of missed or late-cancelled sessions.

Funding via Employer:

For clients attending therapy through a direct arrangement with their employer or the employer’s representative, we normally invoice and collect payment from the employer or the representative unless otherwise agreed.

Invoices are sent monthly to the employer or representative. Payment for cancelled appointments or for any failure to attend without prior notice may be the client’s own responsibility. We advise clients to check with their employer or their representative what the arrangements for payment are in the event of missed or late-cancelled sessions.

Private healthcare funding:

Our Clinical Psychologists are registered as clinical practitioners with a number of healthcare providers including, but not limited to BUPA, Aviva, AXA, and Vitality Health. Each provider and every healthcare plan has different rules and regulations of engagement. As the insurance policy holder, you are responsible for checking with the insurer how many sessions will be funded and whether you have the responsibility to part-pay the fee.

If the Services are being covered by your private healthcare insurance (e.g. AXA, Aviva, BUPA, etc.) please provide the name of the insurance company, your policy number and authorisation code

We are not party to any contract between you and your insurance provider.

Please note that some insurance companies will not pay for any missed/cancelled appointments, and in such circumstances, you will be fully liable to pay the full costs to us (see above). You should check your health insurance policy to ensure you know when they will and will not cover your costs.

If you are obliged to pay any excess or part payments as part of your health insurance policy, then these will be paid by you directly to us as per the terms set out in the Fees & Payment section above.

Confidentiality:

In line with professional guidelines for Clinical Psychologists, the information discussed in our consultations and appointments with you are of a confidential nature. We provide a safe place in which you and/or your child can share your feelings and thoughts with us.

Our commitment to client confidentiality is not affected by who pays for the service provided by us.

We will ensure that any confidential information you [and/or your child] disclose to us shall not be disclosed to any person except as permitted in this section.

We may disclose confidential information relating to you and/or your child: (i) to our employees, advisers, other healthcare professionals or social agencies who need to know such information for the purposes of carrying out our Services to you; (ii) as may be required by law, a court of competent jurisdiction or any governmental or regulatory authority; and/or (iii) if we believe that you or your child are at risk of harming yourself or themselves or others, in which case we are entitled to report this to the relevant organisation. Where possible any breach of confidentiality related to risk of harm will be discussed with you and/or your child first.

We shall not use your confidential information for any purpose other than to perform our obligations under these Therapy Terms.

We shall ensure that any person to whom we disclose your confidential information to in this section also comply with these confidentiality obligations.

It is a requirement for all Clinical Psychologists to have regular Clinical Supervision sessions in which they discuss their work in a safe and confidential space with an equally or more experienced colleague. All work that is discussed in these sessions is completely anonymised. Supervisors are bound by the same professional and ethical regulations as our practitioners and do not discuss clinical material outside of the supervisory context.

As standard practice we do not write to your GP at the beginning or end of our sessions. We recommend that you inform your, or your child's, GP that you are accessing support through our practice, and of the progress.

We request your GP’s name, surgery details and details of your next of kin/emergency contact as a means of keeping you safe, should this be necessary.

We are obliged to inform your referrer (if applicable) of your progress, but the details disclosed will be discussed with you beforehand.

If a medical or legal professional or social worker requests information from us, we will not release this without your consent unless there is a legal obligation to do so.

How We Use Your Personal Information (Data Protection)

We will only use your personal information as set out in our Privacy Policy on our website at www.theparenthoodpsychologypractice.co.uk/privacy-policy. If you do not have access to the internet we can provide you with a printed version of our Privacy Policy.

Dr Lucy Wilcoxon is registered as the Data Controller with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as required by the Data Protection (Charges and Information) Regulations 2018.

In certain circumstances, we may be required to share your personal and sensitive data for medico-legal purposes. This includes instances where your therapy is part of a legal process, such as personal injury or medical negligence claims, or if required by a court order. In such cases, consent may not be necessary. We will ensure that any data shared for these purposes will be done in accordance with applicable data protection laws and only to the extent necessary for the medico-legal purposes.

Note keeping

We will keep an electronic copy of notes from each of the sessions in order to recall information and support our work together.. We will also keep a copy of your contact details and all information shared in our welcome form on beginning a relationship with the Practice.

Notes are kept securely, according to the Data Protection Act (2018).

All notes are held in a password protected format.

We retain ownership of notes but we are happy to discuss their contents with you and you also have a right to access them formally. Should you wish to do this, please contact us in accordance with the Your Rights section of our Privacy Policy.

It is possible for the courts to access notes should they need to in relation to a matter of public interest. In this unlikely event, you will be informed before the notes are released.

If we need to send emails that contain detailed information about your child’s care (for example to yourself or to your GP), we will attach the information as a password protected word document, with the password sent separately. We encourage you to do the same if you need to email us detailed information.

Limitation of Liability:

We will be responsible for any foreseeable loss or damage that you may suffer as a result of our breach of these Therapy Terms or as a result of our negligence. Loss or damage is foreseeable if it is an obvious consequence of our breach or negligence or if it is contemplated by you and us when a contract with you is created. We will not be responsible for any loss or damage that is not foreseeable.

We provide all Services only for your personal and private use/purposes. We will not be liable to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, interruption to business or for any loss of business opportunity.

Nothing in these Therapy Terms is intended to or will exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

Furthermore, if you are a “consumer” as defined by the Consumer Rights Act 2015, or a consumer for the purposes of any other consumer protection legislation, nothing in these Therapy Terms is intended to or will exclude, limit, prejudice, or otherwise affect any of our duties or obligations to you, or your rights or remedies, or our liability to you, under the Consumer Rights Act 2015; the Consumer Contracts (Information and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013; the Consumer Protection Act 1987; and any other consumer protection legislation.

For more details of your legal rights, please refer to your local Citizens’ Advice Bureau or Trading Standards Office.

The Practice does not recommend or make any representation about the efficacy, appropriateness or suitability of any treatments, services or opinions. We cannot guarantee any outcome nor promise to provide a diagnosis.

Changes to these Therapy Terms:

We may from time to time change these Therapy Terms without giving you notice, but we will use our reasonable endeavours to inform you as soon as is reasonably possible of any such change.

Complaints and Standards:

We are committed to providing as helpful and compassionate a service as possible to meet the needs of all our clients.

We always welcome feedback from our clients and, whilst we shall use all reasonable endeavours to provide a high standard of service, care and treatment to all clients and patients, we nevertheless want to hear from you if you have any cause for complaint. If you have any complaint about our Services or any other complaint about us, please raise the matter with us in the first instance, Dr Lucy Wilcoxon, Clinical Psychologist who can be contacted at drlucy@theparenthoodpsychologypractice.co.uk .

If this is not possible, or should you feel you would like to take the matter further, you can contact the British Psychological Society for further advice. https://www.bps.org.uk/submitting-complaint

You may wish to raise your concern directly with the Health and Care Professions Council, should you feel you have encountered an issue of fitness to practise. This can be done by following this link: https://www.hcpc-uk.org/concerns/raising-concerns/

Dr Wilcoxon’s Professional Civil Liability Insurance is provided by Howden Group Ltd. – Please contact www.howdenpro.com should you wish to raise any concerns with them directly.

Crisis management and emergencies:

The type of psychological work offered is not suited to managing emergencies or crisis. If you require urgent help between appointments then please contact your GP, use the NHS 111 service for advice, phone 999 or attend A&E in an emergency. You can also contact the Samaritans’ anonymous helpline on 116 123 or Childline on 0800 1111 (for those under 19 years).

Clinical Continuity Plan:

As part of our practice management, we have prepared a Clinical Continuity Plan to ensure smooth business continuity in the event of Dr Lucy Wilcoxon, or colleagues becoming incapable of running the practice.

A Clinical Agent has been selected, who is a trusted professional, and will contact you in the event of serious illness or death of Dr Lucy Wilcoxon to assist you with finding an alternative therapist. The Clinical Agent will only have access to information about you that is necessary to provide this smooth transition. Primarily this will be your name and contact details. In some circumstances they may have access to information about the type of therapy you are receiving to assist them in finding an appropriate replacement therapist. We will obtain your consent to this sharing of data with the Clinical Agent in our therapy terms with you, but you are entitled to remove this consent at any time by contacting us at drlucy@theparenthoodpsychologypractice.co.uk.

Please be aware that if such consent is removed, then the Clinical Agent will not be able to update you, or find an alternative therapist for you and you will need to source a new therapist yourself.

General

We reserve the right, at any time, to withdraw therapy and our Services to you based on clinical judgement. In such circumstances, any advance payments will be refunded for any Services not provided.

We will not undertake any procedure that is in conflict with any law in force, any voluntary or mandatory code or practice, or any similar rules, regulations or codes.

We insist that we do not meet you or your child face to face if you are experiencing symptoms of an infectious illness, e.g. Covid, influenza or chest infection. Online or telephone sessions can be arranged in lieu, should you or your child be well enough.

Appointment times or other queries can be clarified by contacting Dr Lucy Wilcoxon, Clinical Psychologist; e-mail - drlucy@theparenthoodpsychologypractice.co.uk

If you need to contact us between appointments please do so by email or telephone. We do not provide therapeutic support outside of therapy sessions. Our practice is run alongside other commitments within the NHS, and therefore e-mails/phone calls will be responded to as soon as reasonably possible around this.

We are required to ensure that certain information is given or made available to you as a Consumer before we make our contract with you except where that information is already apparent. This information is included in these Therapy Terms or will be made available to you before we accept a booking from you. All of that information will be part of the terms of our contract with you.

If you have any questions regarding these Therapy Terms, please do not hesitate to discuss with us, either in a session or by contacting us.

No Waiver

If a party fails to enforce a right under this Agreement, that is not a waiver of that right.

Severance

If any provision of these Therapy Terms is held by any competent authority to be invalid or unenforceable, in whole or in part, the validity of the other provisions of these Therapy Terms and the remainder of the provision in question shall not be affected.

Governing law and jurisdiction

These Therapy Terms are subject to the laws of England & Wales and the jurisdiction of the English Courts.

As a consumer, you will benefit from any mandatory provisions of the law in your country of residency.

We ask within the Welcome Form that you, you explicitly consent to the following:

By ticking this box you give your explicit consent for us to collect, process, and store your personal health information (in accordance with our privacy policy) for the purpose of providing psychological services and support. You understand that this may include sensitive data regarding your mental and physical health.

By ticking this box you give your explicit consent for us to share your personal and sensitive data with third parties for the purposes of carrying out our Services (such as third-party suppliers that assist with our practice management – see our Privacy Policy for more information).

By ticking this box you give your explicit consent for us to occasionally transfer your personal and sensitive data outside of the UK and EEA (but only in line with our Privacy Policy).

I consent to you sharing my contact details and essential information about the type of therapy I am receiving with your Clinical Agent in the event of serious illness or death of Dr Lucy Wilcoxon for the sole purpose of assisting with the smooth transfer of therapy services to a suitable alternative therapist.

If the client is under the age of 16 we require the consent of a parent/carer to collect and use health data in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Please tick here to confirm parental/carer consent (if applicable).

Thank you for reading and completing this form - We look forward to working together.