About ClinicalWill.app
ClinicalWill.app is a web-based platform that makes it easy for practitioners in the fields of counselling, therapy, and coaching to securely set up and maintain a Clinical Will that meets ethical and professional standards.
What is a Clinical Will?
A Clinical Will is a set of instructions made by a therapist, counsellor or coach for what will happen to their practice in the event that they are no longer able to work due to sudden illness or death. As a minimum, it lays out how clients can be contacted and supported if a practitioner is unable to do so themselves. You can read more about Clinical Wills and why they are important here.
Why do I need a Clinical Will?
As part of our duty of care towards our clients, we have to consider what will happen in the event that we are suddenly unable to carry on working with them. For this reason, Clinical Wills are explicitly mandated in the ethical frameworks of all major professional membership organisations such as the BACP, UKCP and BPC, as well as many training organisations.
How do I create a Clinical Will?
Setting up a Clinical Will involves creating a process by which your clients can be contacted by an appropriately qualified person if you are suddenly unable to do so yourself. You can read more about how to set up a Clinical Will here.
What happens if I don’t have a Clinical Will?
Hopefully, it won’t come to that, but therapists, like other people, get ill or die unexpectedly. Sometimes, the only person who knows where to find a comprehensive list of client contact details is the practitioner themselves - in cases like these, clients can be left unsupported and feeling worried or distressed about what might have happened to their therapist.
What’s wrong with keeping a hardcopy Clinical Will in a safe place, or sending a password protected document to my clinical trustee?
Nothing. However, any Clinical Will needs to meet the following requirements to be fit for purpose:
The information contained in a Clinical needs to be easily accessible by a Clinical Trustee, so that they can contact and support clients if a practitioner is unable to do so themselves.
Practitioners need to store all client records, including those contained in a Clinical Will in line with data protection regulations such as the UK GDPR and DPA 2018. This means giving a Clinical Trustee access to records that include process notes or other information not related to the function of a Clinical Will would breach these regulations, as would making client information available to anyone not acting as your Clinical Trustee.
A Clinical Will also needs to be up-to-date. This means making necessary changes to client details as soon as possible. Forgetting to do this might mean that your Clinical Trustee does not contact a client you have taken on recently or mistakenly contacts a client you have already finished working with.
ClinicalWill.app is designed with these requirements in mind.
How secure is ClinicalWill.app?
The continued security of the ClinicalWill platform is our top priority. Our founders include an experienced psychotherapist who intimately understands the importance of client confidentiality, and a leader in the information technology and security industry with experience in securing web applications to government standards. You can read more about this here.
How do I sign up?
Practitioners can register here and either subscribe or set up a free limited trial. This allows you to set up an active Clinical Will, register your Next of Kin and Trustees, and add records for up to three clients. For more information about subscriptions, see our Pricing page.