Standards of Practice at Royston Stress Centre

Royston Stress Centre Ltd will endeavour:

To operate a one-door policy which allows people to self refer directly to any of its services.

To give immediate appointments to LifeLink and appointments within eight weeks of initial contact with other service it operates.

To accommodate service users, where possible, if the allocated appointment date or time is not suitable.

To ensure that all employees/practitioners employed by the organisation are professionally trained, fully qualified in their field and insured to practice and adhere to ethical bodies appropriate to their therapeutic practice.

To ensure that all councillors are BACP/COSCA accredited or if recently qualified are working towards accreditation once they have accumulated the required level of supervised practice and that they will adhere to the NHS GG&C standards and ethics of the above professional bodies. (Copies of the standards/ethics are available on request)

To ensure that confidentiality will be strictly adhered to by all of the organisation’s services unless the sharing information with another referral agency or professional has been previously discussed and agreed between the service user/client and our service. Exceptionally, one of our services may disclose information obtained during the working relationship in the interests of safety of the service user/client and/or others i.e. where they and/or others e.g. a child or vulnerable adult are considered to be at risk. In advance of any disclosure, whenever practicable the service user/client will be advised, their permission sought and the practice supervisor consulted.

To ensure that our equal opportunities policy is strictly adhered to and that our services are as accessible as possible to people regardless of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, colour, ethnicity or religion.

To ensure that our staff are available to assist you and will treat you in a respectful, friendly and helpful manner.

To ensure that service users are not required to wait longer than 10 minutes beyond their appointment time without previously being informed of the reason for delay.

To provide smoke free environments.

To provide waiting areas, which are kept clean and tidy and have a sufficient comfortable seating.

To provide users with as much information as possible about the organisation’s services, our holistic approach, the services and therapies we offer, prior to start of treatment and during treatment.

To provide service users with information about other community services and alternative approaches to health and wellbeing.

To ensure a support/treatment plan will be drawn up at the first appointment and that this plan will be mutually agreed upon by the user and the practitioner concerned.