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The Lactation Psychologist (trading name of Dr Harriet Holroyd) Therapy Terms and Conditions 

These Therapy Terms are the standard terms which apply to the services we provide to you (known as the “Services”), by us, trading name of Dr Harriet Holroyd (known as the practice, also referred to as us/we/our). 

Professional Information:

  • Dr Harriet Holroyd is a Clinical Psychologist. She is 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. 

 

 

 

Therapy sessions:

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  • Consultations shall be by appointment only.   Appointments are 50 minutes long and charged at £135. You can make contact with the practise by the contact form on the website or by emailing harriet@thelactationpsychologist.com

 

  • Dr Harriet Holroyd will arrange to speak with you (the prospective client) on the telephone prior to arranging our first appointment. This telephone call is free of charge and there is no obligation to go ahead with an assessment and therapy appointments. The practise reserves the right to not take you on as a client if we do not consider The Lactation Psychologist to be a suitable service for your needs. Where possible, the practise will signpost you to a more suitable service.

 

  • Once you have decided you would like to go ahead with therapy appointments, available appointments will be offered to you during the initial telephone contact or via email following this. Once a suitable appointment time has been agreed upon, payment will be due within 24 hours (a payment link for Stripe payment will be sent to you). The appointment will be held for 24 hours, after which the payment link will expire. Please email to rebook, but appointment availability cannot be guaranteed.   

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  • Subsequent appointments will be booked during sessions or via email, with payment being due 48 hours prior to the appointment.

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  • Contact regarding appointment times can be made between sessions via email. 

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  • If you know you are going to be late for an appointment, you should contact us to tell us via email (harriet@thelactationpsychologist.com).  If you arrive later than 15 minutes after an appointment time the appointment will be treated as cancelled without notice by you and you will be charged (See Cancellations below).

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  • All sessions currently take place online. 

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  • Sessions will be provided online via PowerDiary. PowerDiary is a web-based practise management system, which allows us to securely store your information, send you video links for therapy and send appointment reminders via email. 

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  • 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. PowerDiary are GDPR compliant: Learn about General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)|Power Diary

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  • 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.

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  • 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;

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

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • Wearing earphones attached to your mobile, laptop or tablet device is helpful in blocking out “feedback” noise and ensuring extra privacy.

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Recording of sessions:

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  • To maintain our high-level professional accreditations, 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.

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  • 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. 

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  • 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.​

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Cancellations:

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  • You may cancel an appointment without charge if you give us at least 48 hours in working days prior notice.  If you do so, we will refund to you the full amount for the session (less a £5 administration fee).  For example, cancellations for appointments on Tuesdays should be communicated to us on Fridays.  Cancellations must be made via email. This is the case no matter whether the appointment is for a face to face, online, or telephone session. If you cannot attend in person, an online or telephone consultation will be offered instead.

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

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  1. The required personnel and/or required materials necessary for the provision of the Services are not available; or

  2. An event outside of our reasonable control occurs.

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  • 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.

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  • 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 30 minutes or more you may cancel the appointment and we will refund you in full any advance payment that you have made to us for that appointment.

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  • 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. 

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Session attendance:

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  • The practise usually sees clients weekly or fortnightly, depending upon the treatment plan, your preference and our availability. This will be discussed and agreed upon during the first appointment.

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  • Commitment to regular therapy is important to see improvements in how you are feeling. You may wish to go on holiday or might not be able to make a week due to another commitment. You are required to give at least two weeks notice when you are unable to attend a session. Please be aware that too many missed weeks is unlikely to result in improvement for you, and we will not be able to hold your therapy slot. It could be that now is not the right time for you to commit to therapy. We will always endeavour to have a discussion with you about this before discharging you.

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Ending Therapy:

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  • You may end therapy sessions whenever you like. However, if you are finding therapy difficult, it is advisable to discuss this in sessions rather than just stopping treatment. â€‹â€‹

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  • If the practise reviews sessions and feels that you need a different therapist or therapy, we reserve the right to stop treatment and provide recommendations for alternatives. We also reserve the right to end the therapeutic agreement with you in the event of unforeseen circumstances. If this happens, we will try to give you as much advance notice as possible.

 

Therapy Outcome:

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  • The practise is committed to supporting you to reach your goals via evidence-based therapeutic interventions. However, therapeutic success is also dependent upon a range of factors, including client commitment and motivation. Therefore, no outcome can be guaranteed. 

 

Working Hours and Annual Leave:

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  • Therapy appointments are currently held on a Friday during the day (although this may change in the future to increase availability).

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  • We will endeavour to respond to all email contact within 3 working days, although this may vary depending on annual leave. 

 

  • We will aim to give you a minimum of 2 weeks’ notice of any planned leave dates for Dr Harriet Holroyd.

 

  • We require, where possible, 2 weeks’ notice of any planned holidays from you. 

 

Therapy Materials:

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  • Any materials created or used during your therapy sessions are the intellectual property and copyright of Dr Harriet Holroyd. You are not permitted to sell or share these materials. 

 

Overseas Clients:

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  • It may be possible to provide therapy to clients living outside of the UK. However, this will be decided upon a case-by-case basis. Clients will be liable for paying any transfer fees or conversion rates. 

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Third-party venues:

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  • 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 and Payment:

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  • You must pay for all services in accordance with our current price list before the provision of those services.

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  • Payment will need to be made within 24 hours of booking your first therapy appointment. Non-payment will mean the appointment time has been withdrawn and you will have to contact the practise to rebook. 

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  • For subsequent appointments, payment must be made at least 48 hours in advance of the appointment. 

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  • You will be sent a payment link for each appointment. This uses Stripe, which is a secure payment system. 

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  • All prices of Services shown in the price list are exclusive of VAT (which is not chargeable unless we notify you otherwise).

 

  • We may alter our prices without prior notice. Increases made between the time when you book an appointment and the date of the appointment will not apply to your appointment on that date.

 

  • Refunds will not be issued for work already carried out. 

 

 

Funding via Employer:

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  • Dr Harriet Holroyd may be in a position to offer sessions funded by your employer. Please make contact via the contact form to discuss whether this would be a possibility. 

 

 

Confidentiality:

 

  • The information discussed in our consultations and appointments with you are of a confidential nature.  We provide a safe place in which you 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 disclose to us shall not be disclosed to any person except as permitted in this section.

 

  • We may disclose confidential information relating to you: (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 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 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.

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  • 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.

 

  • The practise takes the details of your next of kin/ emergency contact. If we became concerned about your safety this may be discussed with your emergency contact. This would be discussed with you first. If you do not attend a session without contact mid treatment, we will attempt to make contact with you via telephone and email. If you do not come back to us within 24 hours, we may contact your emergency contact to ensure your safety. 

 

GP and Emergency Contact Details:

 

  • We are obliged to inform your referrer (if applicable) of your progress, but the details disclosed will be discussed with you beforehand. We also recommend that you inform your GP about our sessions, but you are not obligated to do so.  We require your GP’s name and surgery address and details of your next of kin/emergency contact person. Contact with your GP will usually be discussed with you first. However, should we have concern about your safety, your GP may be contacted without your consent in order to share information. 

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  • 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.

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How We Use Your Personal Information (Data Protection):

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  • We will only use your personal information as set out in our Privacy Policy on our website (www.thelactationpsychologist.com).  If you do not have access to the internet we can provide you with a pdf version of our Privacy Policy.

 

  • We are registered as Data Controllers with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as required by the Data Protection (Charges and Information) Regulations 2018.

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Limitation of Liability:

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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 Dr Harriet Holroyd who can be contacted at harriet@thelactationpsychologist.com.

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  • 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/

 

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. You can also contact the Samaritans’ anonymous helpline on 116 123 or Childline on 0800 1111 (for those under 19 years).

 

Social Media Policy:

 

  • Dr Harriet Holroyd posts topical information on Instagram under a designated account @the_lactation_psychologist. You are welcome to follow @the_lactation_psychologist if you would find the content helpful but there is no obligation to, and you can unfollow at any time.

  • Dr Harriet Holroyd will not respond to direct messages from clients or potential clients on social media. 

  • @the_lactation_psychologist will not follow clients on social media. However, this account is used to network with other professionals and business accounts. 

 

Data Retention:

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  • Any email enquiries will be deleted after 6 months if you do not become a client. If you do become a client, your information will be stored securely for the duration of your therapy.

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  • Following completion of therapy, your details and session notes will be stored securely for 7 years to fulfil our legal, regulatory and accounting requirements. Following this, your records will be securely deleted.

 

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Your Rights:

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  • You have the right to request a copy of your records so that you can check the accuracy of the information we hold about you. You can also request to have your records corrected. Please keep us informed if your personal details change.

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  • If you would like a copy of some or all your personal information, please make a Subject Access Request (SAR) using the contact form on the website or via email (harriet@thelactationpsychologist.com). Once we have confirmed your identity, we will process your request and provide a copy of your information within one month without any charge. We may extended this time period to 2 months if the information requested is complex. Repetitive requests will result in a small processing fee. Please note that we are legally permitted to withhold aspects of your personal information if we feel that providing this information will violate your vital interests.

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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.

 

  • If you need to contact us between appointments please do so by email.  We do not provide therapeutic support outside of therapy sessions. We aim to respond to emails within with 3 working days.

 

  • 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 via email (harriet@thelactationpsychologist.com). 

 

No Waiver:

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

 

Severance:

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  • 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.

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Website Terms & Conditions:

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  • By using this website, you are agreeing to comply with our website terms and conditions, as detailed under the Website Privacy and Cookie Policy. If you do not agree to these terms, then please no not use our website.

 

  • These terms of use refer to the following additional policies, which also apply to your use of our website: Privacy and Cookie Policy 

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Our Rights to Content On This Website:

 

  • Dr Harriet Holroyd reserves the right to remove this website, adjust the website content or amend the website terms and conditions. Each time you use this website, please check that you agree with the current version of our terms.  

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  • The content of this website is owned by Dr Harriet Holroyd. You may view the content and use it for personal use. You may not reproduce, modify or sell any of the content from this website. You may link to this website provided that you acknowledge Dr Harriet Holroyd as the author do so in the way that does not damage our reputation. You may not link to our website in a way that suggests any form of association with Dr Harriet Holroyd unless you have prior consent to do so. Dr Harriet Holroyd reserves the right to withdraw any linking permissions.

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The Limitations Of This Website:

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  • The content of this website is to provide general information about psychological therapy and mental health. It is not meant to replace professional advice and may not necessarily be tailored to your needs. This website is also designed to be used by people in the United Kingdom and may not be appropriate for people living elsewhere.

 

  • Dr Harriet Holroyd is not responsible for content of the websites this website links to. Dr Harriet Holroyd also cannot guarantee that there are no viruses on this website and does not take responsibility if you are affected by a virus. It is your responsibility to ensure that you are taking appropriate measures by using antivirus software when accessing the internet.

 

  • You must not introduce viruses or attempt to gain unauthorised access to this website or email accounts. If you attempt this, it would be considered a criminal offence by the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and would be reported to the police.

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How Your Personal Information Is Managed:

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  • Your personal information is managed in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2016 and the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) guidelines. Please read the Data Protection, Privacy and Cookies Policy for full details of this.

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Contact:

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  • If you wish to contact Dr Harriet Holroyd regarding this website or terms and conditions then please use the contact form.

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