Terms and Conditions for

The Paediatric Psychology Practice

By booking and attending sessions with The Paediatric Psychology Practice, you agree to the terms and conditions outlined below.

These terms ensure a professional and supportive environment for all clients.

Overview

Psychology support services at The Paediatric Psychology Practice are mainly provided by Dr Megan Hofmann, Clinical Psychologist. She has 16 years’ experience of working in NHS mental health settings and ten years working in various paediatric services. She qualified as a Clinical Psychologist in 2014 and is registered to practice as a Practitioner Psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council (reg no.: PYL31258).

Booking an Appointment

Please contact us on drmegan@theppp.uk to arrange an initial appointment. We will ask you to review our ‘Terms and Conditions’ and to complete an ‘About Us’ form prior to our first online meeting. Within the ‘About Us’ form, if applicable, we will ask for the contact details of your child’s healthcare team and permission to contact them. This will be to inform them of our involvement in your child’s care and to ensure best practice. We will speak to you before contacting them.

Initial Appointment

All appointments are carried out online via a secure video link.

A standard initial assessment appointment is 50 minutes long and costs £120. In this appointment we will explore the reasons that brought you to therapy and what you would like to gain from our sessions together.

If the support is being requested directly for your child/young person, we request that they attend the initial assessment session, along with their parent/caregiver. Please let us know if this is not possible for any reason. There will be an opportunity for the child/young person to talk to the psychologist on their own if they wish.

You may also wish to opt for our (optional) extended assessment appointment which is 90 minutes long and costs £220. This option includes a summary letter of our discussion as well as provision of any helpful resources and/or signposting links (as appropriate). 

Online Appointments

Online appointments are a safe and convenient way to access psychological therapy. To get the most out of the sessions we ask you to find yourself a comfortable, quiet space, where you won’t be disrupted. Whilst we understand that some interruptions may be unavoidable, frequent interruptions can make the work harder to achieve and may require additional sessions as a result.

We ask that you treat these sessions with the same respect that you would if you attended a face-to-face appointment. To protect your privacy, and that of children and young people, please ensure that sessions are not completed in a bedroom, and that you are appropriately dressed.

Next Steps

At the end of the initial appointment, we will form a plan together around the best next steps. This may involve arranging some individual sessions for you, your child or other family members. Alternatively, it may be that our service isn’t the most appropriate form of support to help you reach your goals, in which case we will try to recommend other services to you.

We don’t offer a set number of sessions. Everyone is different in terms of their needs, and progress depends on a variety of factors, including the complexity of the challenges you are working through. Therapy is most helpful when sessions are attended regularly - this could be weekly or fortnightly. After four sessions, we will review our work together to ensure that we are heading towards your goals. However, if at any time you have concerns about the work or want a review sooner, please speak to us so that we can do so. You are welcome to end therapy at any point (subject to our 24-hour cancellation policy), however, it’s generally helpful to have an ‘ending session’ if possible.

Consent

We understand that coming to talk to a psychologist, whom you have not met before, can be anxiety-provoking, especially for children and young people. Throughout our work we will endeavor to engage children and young people to the best of our abilities to complete our work effectively. However, we adhere to strict professional codes of conduct as outlined by the Health and Care Professions Council. One of these codes of conduct relates to an individual’s consent to participate in sessions. We would never force anyone to participate if they did not want to. If a child or young person chose not to engage directly, there may still be support that we can offer holistically to the wider network such as their family and teachers in order to meet some of the original goals.

Payment Terms

Payment for services is due at the time of booking in order to secure the appointment.

Payment can be made by BACS. Bank details will be emailed to you.

Cancellation Policy

If you need to cancel or re-arrange an appointment, please contact us as soon as possible. Provided that you give us at least 24 hours’ notice we will be happy to either re-arrange this or give you a full refund.

Please note that appointments that are cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice will incur the full payment charge.

If for any reason we need to re-arrange an appointment you will be offered either a new date or else a full refund.

Confidentiality, GDPR and Privacy Policy

The Paediatric Psychology Practice adheres to the UK General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). All personal information is confidential and held securely. However, there are certain exceptions to this, such as if there is a risk of harm to yourself or others, whereby we would need to share confidential information with other agencies in order to keep you safe. Please read our privacy policy on our website (www.thepaediatricpsychologypractice.com/ts-cs ) for further details.

Please note that young people aged 16 and over can consent to the sharing/not sharing of their information (except in cases where there is risk of harm to themselves or others). For instance, we may think it is beneficial to a young person to share information with a parent/caregiver, but they may decline this consent, and we would adhere to this unless we were seriously concerned about safety or we thought that the child did not have capacity to make this decision. Young people aged under 16 are also often able to provide/withhold consent, where they are deemed to be competent to make this decision to share information, however we would generally try to also seek the consent of parents/caregivers where possible.

As part of good practice, all clinical psychologists also access professional supervision with another qualified professional. Not all cases/service users would be discussed with a supervisor, though if you/your child was discussed, full names would not be used. Only ‘need to know’ information would be shared, for the purposes of advice and consultation and to ensure you are receiving optimal treatment. The supervisor is also compliant with GDPR.

Recording of psychology sessions (on the phone or on any other device) is not permitted unless the psychologist has issued prior consent in writing. In no circumstances is it permitted to make public an unauthorised recording (video or audio) of the session on any social platform and legal action may be taken if that is found to be the case.

All relating correspondence (verbal or in writing) such as by phone, email or online software is strictly for use of the service user and the psychologist. Information can be disclosed only if it is required by law.

Out of hours/crisis support

Please note that we do not offer urgent or crisis support.  Our support sessions are limited to pre-agreed appointment times only. We are unlikely to be able to offer support outside of these times. If you experience a crisis or need urgent support please speak to your GP in the first instance, or else call 999 if there is any immediate risk of harm.

Complaints

We aim to provide an optimal service at all times. However, we understand that there may be times when someone is unhappy with the service that they have received. Please contact us in person or by phone in the first instance in order to give us a chance to rectify this.

However, if the complaint cannot be resolved in a satisfactory manner, please put your concerns in writing and address it to contact@theppp.uk for a more formal response.

Should you still have concerns then you are also able to contact the Health and Care Professions Council.

Revised on 11th March 2025

Next review date: 11th March 2026