Terms of service.

What you can expect from your initial discussion with Director of Psychological Services, Jenny Dew

Your initial consultation will consist of an assessment, the purpose which is to build up an accurate picture of your needs, from where we will create a diagnosis (if seen by a Psychiatrist), treatment plans and any other recommendations that Jenny Dew may feel necessary.

Having been assessed by Jenny, or when approached directly, please note that specialists at RYL will adopt different strategies for assessing patient’s needs from time to time.

Fees and Charges

Each specialist is responsible for collecting payment for services provided.

Self-Pay

RYL accepts patients that are self-paying for their treatment, as well as those who are covered by valid healthcare insurance. Details of the fee structure for each specialist will be different and may change without notice.

Your subsequent consultation fee with any specialist recommended by Jenny Dew should be paid on day of your appointment.

Please be aware that it will be your responsibility to settle any unpaid fees with each specialist directly.

Private Medical Insurance

If you wish to claim payment for treatment through your healthcare insurer, please contact your insurer prior to your initial appointment with Jenny Dew. You will be expected to provide a letter of confirmation from your insurance company prior to your appointment, which should state whether they will cover the costs of your diagnostic or treatment sessions either partially or in full. You are required to cover the medical excess payments falling due to your healthcare insurer.

The list of insurance providers accepted by each specialist will be different and some may not be able to be covered by healthcare insurance.

Please be aware that it will be your responsibility to settle any unpaid fees with each specialist, and RYL is not accountable or liable for any individual specialist’s professional indemnity insurance policies.

Excess Fee

Some policies may have an excess fee, that you will need to settle with your insurance company. We recommend that you review this with your policy holder beforehand. Please be aware that any outstanding payment will need to be settled as per the protocol for self-paying patients. Failure to make payment may result in referring this onto our debt collecting agency.

Cancellation Policy

Appointments that are missed without the respected notice, result in a lost opportunity to offer the appointment time to someone else. If you should need to cancel your appointment, you will need to inform us at least 24 hours before of your appointment time, otherwise you will be held liable to a cancellation fee.

Cancellation fees are charged at the cost of a full 1-hour consultation with the specialist concerned. Please be aware that if your insurance is paying for your sessions, they do not always pay for cancelled or missed appointments, this varies with each insurance policy and we recommend that you contact your insurance policy provider to enquire about this prior to starting your treatment. If your insurance does not cover this, you are responsible of settling any cancellation charge with the specialist that you may incur.

We do make an exception to accidents and sudden illness, however it will be your responsibility to inform us of your circumstances or you may still face a cancellation charge.

COVID- 19

During this time, our appointments can be in person or using an online medium like Skype, WhatsApp, FaceTime or Zoom. If you would like to see anyone “virtually” this can be arranged, however it may be best for your initial assessment with Jenny Dew or a consultant psychiatrist (the doctor) in person. In the event that you are feeling unwell (for any reason that is suspected to be related to COVID in any of its variant forms) you MUST NOT ATTEMPT to come to the clinic. In such circumstances (including where the NHS App has told you to self-isolate having been in touch with someone who has a positive result to a PCR test or Lateral Flow test) please phone your doctor or therapist as soon as possible directly to see if they can accommodate seeing you virtually by another method. It will be at the discretion of your doctor or therapist to decide how to charge you. Where possible you should take advantage of the government’s offer of free vaccinations, however please note a “vaccine passport” is no guarantee that you may not be infected or be carrying COVID asymptomatically. We observe protocols around hand washing and temperature taking in the clinic, though it is likely you won’t need to wear a mask during your appointment.

Lateness Policy

All clinic appointments are booked by fixed time slots.

We do understand that on occasion patients may be late for an appointment, however it will be your responsibility to contact us to inform us if you are unable to meet your appointment time.

It will be under your discretion whether you wish to still attend the appointment, however there will be no adjustments made to the appointment time. Our clinic observes the protocol for the mental health system, in that an hour long appointment will last for only 50 minutes or shorter, so that the doctor or therapist can write up any notes (usually a requirement of health insurance providers) or write a report for your GP or any other therapists working on your case. If you do wish to attend your appointment, your appointment will finish at the time it was originally booked. As we run a highly busy clinic, this leaves us with very little room to accommodate late comers. We respect that each client has pre-booked their appointment to see each specialist for a specific time and therefore do our absolute best in ensuring we are punctual and meeting the expectations of our clients. Please also be aware that if you wish to attend the shorter appointment due to lateness, you will still be charged for the full appointment time.

Each specialist makes every effort to be punctual with individual appointment times, but on occasion may be delayed in a consultation, usually only in an emergency.

Email Enquiries

We do understand that for a vast number of clients, emailing may be the most convenient method of communication to use when contacting RYL .

The General Medical Council has advised us on the use of emails and their security. Although we have taken internal measurements to protect the confidentiality of our patients, please be aware that emails are not a completely secure method of communication and we recommend that you refrain from disclosing any sensitive or confidential information through email.

Should you choose to email RYL or any of the specialists working here, we cannot be held responsible for what you choose to include in your email or any problems with intercepting your emails to us.

Website Content

When visiting this website, you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy. Please be aware that the content on this website is provided for general information only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely (whether medically or otherwise). You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on this website.

Although we make reasonable efforts to ensure our information and content provided on this website is updated and reflective of the services that we provide, we do reserve the right to make changes to this website and these terms and conditions at any time without notice to our clients. We will update the terms on this website from time to time.

External links are provided for information and convenience only. Please be aware that we do not accept responsibility for the sites linked to, or the information found there.

Malware and Viruses

We are not responsible for viruses and you must not introduce them.

Although our website is regularly maintained to prevent any problems that may occur, please be aware that we do not guarantee that this website will be secure or free from bugs or viruses.

It is under your responsibility to configure your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access this website. You should use your own virus protection software.

We do not accept misuse of this website by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to this website, the server on which this website is stored, or any server, computer or database connected to this website. You must not attack this website via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. In order for us to protect the website and its users, we will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use this website will cease immediately.

These terms of use, their subject matter and their formation, are governed by English law including any non-contractual disputes or claims. It is agreed that the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction over any such disputes.

Complaints Policy

If there is any problem with the services that we provide, please contact us and tell us as soon as reasonably possible, with full details and we will investigate the problem under our complaints procedure. Once completed we will notify you in writing with the outcome of our process. Every complaint is acknowledged within two working days, all complaints are then investigated and responded to in writing within 28 days of being made. We do try in every instance to meet this 28-day time frame, however if for any reason there is a delay with this process, we will notify you of this and keep you updated with the progress of the investigation. All complaints are reported to the Managing Director, Rami Alfalahi, who is responsible for following through and making final decisions on complaints on behalf of the company. In addition to this complaints are also reviewed within our Clinical Governance Committee meetings, in order to improve the quality of service provided to our patients.

Data Protection & Cookies

Cookies are small data files transferred to your computer hard drive, through your web browser, to enable our systems to recognise your browser and to provide us with basic information regarding how our website is being used. In no way does a cookie give us any access to your computer, or any personal information about you, except when you choose to contact us through the online “contact us” form. You can choose whether to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser settings to decline cookies if you prefer. However there may be a consequence in doing this, as it may prevent you from taking full advantage of the functionality of our website.

Please note that we do not directly harvest or take the data from the website.

We do not buy and sell information from third parties and won’t pass on details to anyone without your consent, except in an emergency situation.

Data Portability/Information Sharing

Upon registration with us, we will keep a record of any non-medical details, such as: your name; address; date of birth; contact telephone; or, your email address. This information will be stored on our secure data base uniquely for administrative and accounting purposes only. Any clinical data stored on our secure data base can be accessed only by Director of Psychological Services, Jenny Dew.

In some cases, clients may be seeing more than one specialist and may want to share details of their sessions with others that are dealing with their care. Clients have the right to request that we share your details with another specialist, (whether or not part of this clinic - for example your GP or health insurance provider), however we follow strict guidelines when sharing information. We can only fulfil this request with written and signed confirmation from the client themselves, clearly stating the patient’s consent, unless they are under age of consent (18) or not in full mental capacity to do so in which case the next of kin, or a registered power of legal attorney can make this request on their behalf.

The Right To Be Forgotten

Under UK law, known as the GDPR (created under the Data Protection Act 1998), it is an individuals right to have their personal data erased. The right to erasure is also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’. Please be aware that this right is not absolute and only applies in certain circumstances. One of those circumstances regards medical records, which will be archived and not completely erased. In order to gain an understanding of your rights in more depth you can visit: https://www.ico.gov.uk

Information Requests

Under the practice in the UK , individuals have the right to obtain access to their personal clinical information and request a print out or electronic copy for themselves or to be sent to another medical healthcare provider. Each individual specialist can arrange to provide copies of any documents they hold electronically, or in paper format. In line with the UK practice such copies will be provided electronically, free charge to you and can be sent to another therapist or doctor at your request.

Disclaimer

Once a relationship has been established between any specialist and client from the point of your initial consultation, it will remain up to the specialist to endeavour to meet and provide an exceptional level of psychological care for you. The individual specialists you see will provide you with the most appropriate treatment plan catered to your changing needs through treatment, this may be adjusted where necessary provide you always with the quality of care you can expect.

Please be aware that if you have not attended or communicated with any of our specialists over the period of a clear 12 months, it will be assumed that you have self-discharged from our services. Although we are unable to delete any clinical records (see above), we will electronically archive patients records after this time. Should you wish to resume treatment at any time, this means that we are still able to obtain your records, such as your treatment notes and your medical history.

Please be aware that each individual specialist reserves the right to change their professional consultation fees at any time. If you have not attended a consultation for over six months, you should ask your therapist or consultant whether their fees may have changed since your last appointment, and you should assume that the new consultation fee will be applicable and any old arrangements about rates will be overwritten.

Our Responsibility For Loss Or Damage Suffered By You

Please be aware that we cannot accept responsibility for loss or damage to any personal belongings you have brought with you to RYL. We recommend that you do not bring any valuables with you. Any loss or damage to your belongings whilst on our premises will be at your own risk.

We are compliant with all fundamental standards of providing care to patients, and where possible follow the guidance of the Care Quality Commission (although as therapists we are not covered by CQC registration) and the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. We take all appropriate measures to protect our patients and ensure that our premises are safe and secure at all times. RYL regularly undertakes risk assessments, to ensure that our care is of the appropriate quality and standard particularly to ensure the safety of our building (see COVID above). Under the Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 we have the appropriate equipment required to provide First Aid assistance in an emergency, and keep records of all instances that our equipment needs to be used to ensure the products remain fresh. We have trained and competent first-aiders in the building who should be contacted in the event of an accident and emergency.

Please note that RYL does not accept any responsibility and is not liable to accept any blame or provide compensation for damage or injury to your person whilst you are being treated by one of our consultants whether or not on the premises of RYL. Your specialist therapist or consultant remains solely liable for any negligent act or omission causing direct damage to you as a result of their treatment, and they will individually be holders of appropriate Professional Indemnity Insurance which would manage liability and payment for any compensation found directly necessary. If you have experienced any personal injury caused to you personally inside the premises of the clinic or at fault or negligent omission of an individual specialist, please report this to Jenny Dew or Rami Alfalahi as part of our complaints process and we will make a full and thorough investigation regarding the circumstances, however will not be liable for any damages in respect of the events causing the complaint. All investigations of complaints will be acknowledged within two days and responded to within 28 days of your complaint being made in writing with full particulars. We endeavour in every instance to meet this 28-day time frame, however if for any reason there is a delay with, we will notify you of this and keep you updated with the progress of our investigation.

Please note that we are not liable to accept any blame or responsibility for damage or injury caused outside the premises.