PRIVACY NOTICE

Smallwood Therapies

Steven Smallwood

Last updated: September 2026

I take your privacy seriously. This notice explains what personal information I collect, why I need it, how I keep it secure and what happens to it.

I am responsible for the personal information I hold about you as part of providing Smallwood Therapies.

What information do I collect?

Depending on how you interact with me, I may collect:

your name and contact details
your year of birth
information about your massage experience
relevant information about your health, injuries, operations, illnesses, medication, allergies or sensitivities
information about any current medical or other professional care that may be relevant to your session
information you choose to provide about anything significant or stressful that may be relevant to your session
an emergency contact’s name, telephone number and relationship to you
your appointment and booking history
brief notes about your sessions, such as areas of tension, preferred pressure or other information that may help me provide your future sessions
payment and transaction information
information you provide if you choose to receive occasional emails from me

I only ask for information that I consider relevant to providing my services and running my business.

Why do I use your information?

I use your information to:

manage your bookings and appointments
contact you about your bookings or sessions
assess whether your chosen massage, aromatherapy or Reiki session is appropriate
provide your session safely and appropriately
keep brief records that help me provide future sessions
process payments and keep the business’s financial records
respond to enquiries
send occasional information about my services, availability or special offers if you have chosen to receive these
meet my legal, insurance and professional responsibilities

For most of your personal information, I use it because it is necessary to provide the service you have booked, to communicate with you, or to meet my legal obligations.

Health information

Some of the information you provide is health information. Health information is classed as special category data under UK data protection law.

I ask for relevant health information because I need it to assess whether your chosen therapy is appropriate and, where appropriate, to provide your session safely.

You are asked to give explicit consent for me to collect and use the health information you provide for this purpose.

If information you provide means that a session is not appropriate, I will not go ahead with the session. I may contact you to explain this and, where appropriate, suggest an alternative.

I do not diagnose medical conditions and I do not create detailed medical records.

At subsequent sessions, I will normally ask whether there have been any medical changes since I last saw you. Where relevant, I may add a brief note to your client record.

Where is your information stored?

I use a number of trusted services to run Smallwood Therapies. These include:

Wix, for my website, online bookings, consultation forms and related business information
Trello, where I keep brief client notes. My client boards are private and accessible only to me, and my account is protected with two-step verification
Google, which provides the email service I use for Smallwood Therapies
Wix, Monzo and Stripe, where applicable, for processing payments and maintaining payment records

These organisations may process personal information as part of providing the services I use to run my business.

Some of these services may process or store information outside the UK. Where this happens, appropriate safeguards are used in accordance with applicable data protection law.

Who do I share your information with?

I do not sell your personal information.

I do not routinely share your client information with other people or practitioners.

Your information may be processed by the service providers I use to run my business, such as Wix, Trello, Google and payment providers. This is necessary for them to provide the services I use.

I will not share your client information with another practitioner or other person simply because they ask for it.

If I ever need to share your information outside these arrangements, I will normally ask for your permission first unless I am legally required to disclose it.

How do I keep your information secure?

I take reasonable steps to protect the information I hold about you.

My phone and computer are protected by appropriate security measures, including Face ID or passwords where applicable. My relevant online accounts use two-step verification where available.

My Trello client records are held on private boards that only I can access.

I keep the amount of information I record to what I reasonably need for providing my services and running my business.

How long do I keep your information?

I normally keep client records for seven years from your most recent appointment.

This includes the information you provide through my consultation form and the brief notes I keep about your sessions.

I use this period because it provides a reasonable period for maintaining professional records and is consistent with guidance available to members of my professional association.

Once the retention period has passed, I will review the information and securely delete it unless there is a genuine reason why I need to keep it for longer, such as an ongoing complaint, legal matter or insurance issue.

Financial and tax records may need to be kept for different periods to meet legal requirements.

Marketing emails

I only send occasional non-essential emails to people who have specifically chosen to receive them.

These may include information about my services, availability, new venues or special offers.

You can unsubscribe from these emails at any time. Every marketing email will provide a way to do this.

Choosing not to receive these emails will not affect the services you receive from me.

Information collected through my website

When you visit my website, some information may be collected automatically through Wix and other website services.

I use website analytics to help me understand how people use my website and improve it.

My website also uses cookies and similar technologies. Some are necessary for the website to work, while others may require your consent.

I use a cookie consent tool on my website so that you can make choices about non-essential cookies and similar technologies.

Your rights

Under data protection law, you have rights relating to the personal information I hold about you. Depending on the circumstances, these can include the right to:

ask what personal information I hold about you
ask for a copy of your information
ask me to correct information that is inaccurate
ask me to delete information when there is no longer a valid reason for me to keep it
object to certain uses of your information
ask me to restrict how your information is used in certain circumstances
withdraw consent where I am relying on consent to process your information

Some of these rights have exceptions, so they do not apply in every situation.

If you want to exercise any of these rights, please email me at info@stevensmallwood.co.uk.

I may need to confirm your identity before providing information or making changes to your records.

If you withdraw consent for health information

You can withdraw your explicit consent to the use of your health information at any time.

If you withdraw consent, I may no longer have the information I need to assess whether your chosen therapy is appropriate or to provide it safely. This may mean that I cannot provide a future session.

Withdrawing consent does not affect anything I have already done lawfully using your information before you withdrew your consent.

Complaints

If you have a concern about how I have used your personal information, please contact me first at:

info@stevensmallwood.co.uk

I will do my best to resolve the matter.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s independent regulator for data protection.

You can find information about making a complaint on the ICO website.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

I may update this Privacy Notice from time to time if the way I use personal information changes or if data protection requirements change.