Privacy Policy

This privacy policy explains how personal information is collected, used, and disclosed by The Goldsmith Clinic LTD. This Policy applies to visitors and users (individually , ” you “) of The Goldsmith Clinic website. It is our personal guarantee to you that the Goldsmith Clinic will never use your personal details for any marketing campaigns nor will we share them with third-party agencies who might use your data in this manner. There are only two occasions ever where your details/information would be shared with a professional third party.

1/ is with your General Practitioner or referring Doctor(s) and only once your permission is sought in writing.

2/ Children First refers to Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children 2017 and the Children First Act 2015. It is a generic term used to encompass the guidance, the legislation and the implementation of both.

Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children (2017) is a national policy document which assists people in identifying and reporting child abuse. It describes the four main types of abuse and sets out the steps which should be taken to ensure that the child or young person is protected from harm. “It is intended to assist you, whether you are a member of the public, a professional, employee or volunteer in identifying and reporting child abuse and neglect, and to deal effectively with these concerns. It also sets out the statutory responsibilities for mandated persons and organisations under the Children First Act 2015 and provides information about how the statutory agencies respond to reports of concerns made about children.” (p3)

As Doctors, Nurses, Psychotherapists and Psychologists are all by law considered mandated persons, we are therefore legally obliged to report any concerns regarding children’s safety. These concerns may be reported to us directly or indirectly by persons attending us here at the clinic. This is the only instance where we will not require the persons’ permission or consent in reporting these concerns or information to the HSE and the TUSLA child and family agency.

Children First sets out specific protocols for social workers who work in Tusla, Gardaí, and other frontline staff in dealing with suspected abuse and neglect. It emphasises the importance of multidisciplinary and inter-agency working in the management of concerns about children’s safety and welfare. Key to this is the sharing of information between agencies and disciplines in the best interests of children and the need for full co-operation to ensure better outcomes. It also highlights procedures and practices that should be in place within organisations working with children to safeguard them from abuse.

The types of data that we hold/store about you

The Goldsmith Clinic will hold on file some personal data on individuals who attend our clinic for treatment/support on a vast range of mental health and psychological difficulties. This information may include biographical data such as your name, address, telephone no, date of birth etc. It may also include more sensitive information such as your medical and/or mental health history as well as family history, diagnosis, medications etc. This information is collected at the commencement and throughout your treatment with us. Your medical record file will also include notes on your visits and your progress and interactions with us. We want to reassure all individuals who attend our clinic regarding the safety of their files. These files are stored at all times when not in use of course in a locked filing cabinets in the clinic. It is our policy to keep these files for a 10 year period only. After this time the file will be shredded in its entirety. Files that are not in active use are stored on site in a locked room again in a filing storage unit.

Clients who wish to have their files transferred to another clinic must apply to us in writing for same. Clients who wish to have their files released to them personally must also apply to us in writing.   Once it is deemed appropriate and in the best interests, health-wise for the client this can be granted. There may also, however, be occasions where clients will have to apply through the freedom of information act for their file to be released to them. This generally will only be necessary when and if the Consultant or treating therapist feels that the release of the file would not be in the clients best interest and may affect their safety and or mental health further. These situations, however, are a rare occurrence but also are worth noting here.

Payment Card Information

The clinic will never at anytime hold any payment or card details for clients that attend us. This is strictly against our policy. All payments are made on the day where the service/appointment has been delivered.

Encrypted Data While Browsing our Site

Contact Us Form

For clients that engage the clinic through the use of our “Contact us” page, they will be asked to provide us with their email and telephone number. This information is strictly for us to return to the person by phone or email with some information on our service and also to explore with them regarding their needs etc. Once this has been done the email that was sent through the contact us page will be deleted within a two week period. We do not store or transfer that information to any other third parties. The two-week window allows for us to give the person the opportunity to reply to the email/phone call with any other questions. Following this time the contact form email and all details are deleted.

Although the data sent from your PC to our webserver are encrypted, the emails that notify us about your form submission are sent unencrypted and as such they could be read by a 3rd party such as an internet service provider. If you do not want your name and number to be transmitted electronically then please telephone us. Our telephone calls are not recorded by us.

Cookies & Website Analytics

This site uses cookies – small text files that are placed on your machine to help the site provide a better user experience. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping carts, and provide anonymised tracking data to third party applications like Google Analytics. As a rule, cookies will make your browsing experience better. However, you may prefer to disable cookies on this site and on others. The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser. We suggest consulting the Help section of your browser or taking a look at the About Cookies website which offers guidance for all modern browsers.

Requests by your web browser to our servers for web pages and other content on our website are recorded. We record information such as your geographical location, your Internet service provider and your IP address. We also record information about the software you are using to browse our website, such as the type of computer or device.

We use this information in aggregate to review visits to our webpages and performance of advertising. We do not use this information to identify you personally and this data is not shared with any third-parties. This data is securely stored by Google’s analytics platform.