Confidentiality and Safeguarding Notice

I have a legal, professional and ethical obligation to protect your confidentiality.  I will never share information about you for commercial or personal gain but on rare occasions breaking confidentiality might be necessary in order to protect you or others from serious harm or to comply with the law. 

When I make decisions that impact upon your confidentiality I expect to be held accountable. 

I am always willing to discuss confidentiality with you, and you should feel free to raise any queries, issues or concerns with me at any point. 

It is important for you to be aware that there may be occasions when I will need to break confidentiality by passing on information you disclose to me to a third party.  The scenarios in which I will have to or may feel it appropriate to pass the information you have disclosed to a third party are as follows:   

To protect you or a third party (i.e. somebody else) from serious harm:

If, as a result of something you disclose to me either within one of our sessions or externally (for example by email, text, telephone etc), I feel that you, or someone else, is at serious risk of harm, I will need to consider breaking confidentiality in order to protect either yours or the other person’s safety or wellbeing.  Where possible I will always try to seek your consent before passing on any information you have disclosed to me to any third parties.

However, you must be aware that if I feel that the situation is serious or urgent enough, I may break confidentiality without your consent or even, in very extreme cases, against your wishes.

Examples of this might include if you disclose to me:

Your imminent intention to take your own life

Your imminent intention to harm your pet

Imminent harm to your pet from another individual

For legal reasons

In certain circumstances I may have a legal obligation to pass on information about a crime if it is disclosed to me either within one of our sessions or externally (for example by email, text, telephone etc). This includes breaches of the Animal Welfare Act. It will usually be appropriate that I inform you when I have to, or I am about to breach your confidentiality. However, there are some circumstances where it may be defensible not to inform you, for example, where the disclosure relates to terrorism or a child protection situation, on the basis that it could be considered to be dangerous to others to alert you about a disclosure, or it may compromise a police investigation.

In other cases, whilst I may not have an absolute legal obligation to make a disclosure, I will still have to weigh up the ethical implications of breaking your confidentiality against the possible harm that keeping the information to myself might cause to others or to society in general. If I feel it appropriate, having given it appropriate consideration, I will pass this information on to the relevant third party in a secure way. Again, where possible and if appropriate, I will always try to seek your consent before doing so. 

However, you must be aware that if I feel that the situation is serious or urgent enough, I may break confidentiality without your consent or even, in very extreme cases, against your wishes.

You also need to be aware that there are circumstances under which I can be compelled to disclose information about you by the courts or law enforcement authorities.

Third parties to whom I may, where appropriate, pass your information

These include, where appropriate:

• The police
• The local authority (including social services and local safeguarding teams)
• Your GP
• The RSPCA

Breaking confidentiality is a serious matter for any professional and I will only consider doing so after weighing up all the legal and ethical ramifications. 

This would include careful consideration of the relevant ethical framework and guidance issued by my professional membership body. I will also likely seek advice from my supervisor and other relevant, expert legal and professional advisors.

I am registered with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons should you wish to review their ethical framework and guidance.

Please also read the privacy policy to see the information we hold about you.