Starting a private practice in the UK: a practical checklist

Registration, insurance, the ICO fee, record keeping, tax, pricing, bookings and getting paid: what to sort out before your first private client in the UK.

MyWellOps teamPublished 28 September 2026 · 7 min read

Setting up on your own is mostly a list of small, unglamorous jobs. None of them is hard on its own. The trouble is that they come from different places (your regulator or professional body, HMRC, the Information Commissioner’s Office, your insurer) and nobody hands you the full list.

This guide is that list, in roughly the order you’ll need it. It’s written for therapists, counsellors and health practitioners working as sole traders in the UK. Where a rule depends on your circumstances, it points you to the body that can give you a definite answer.

1. Check your registration and professional body

Start with the question of who you answer to professionally, because it shapes almost everything else.

If your profession is regulated by law, you must be on the right register before you practise under its title. The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) regulates professions including physiotherapists, occupational therapists, practitioner psychologists, arts therapists, dietitians, and speech and language therapists. The HCPC says the titles of the professions it regulates are protected by law, and it takes action where people use one of those titles without being on its register.

If your profession isn’t regulated by law, which is the case for counselling and psychotherapy in the UK, membership of a professional body still matters to clients, supervisors and insurers. The Professional Standards Authority runs an Accredited Registers programme for health and care practitioners who aren’t regulated by law, including counsellors, psychotherapists and hypnotherapists. Being on an accredited register is a sign to the public that your register meets the Authority’s standards, though it isn’t statutory regulation.

Whichever applies to you, read your body’s code of conduct properly before you start. It will set expectations on supervision, record keeping, advertising and insurance that go beyond the legal minimum.

2. Get insurance in place before your first session

Insurance is not optional for most practitioners, whatever the law says.

The HCPC requires professional indemnity as a condition of registration. If you’re self-employed or in independent practice, you must make your own arrangements, and when you register you declare that you have (or will have) cover that is appropriate to your practice.
BACP commits its members to “have adequate insurance” in its Ethical Framework, and says that if you work in private practice you must have your own policy in place.

Most practitioners look at professional indemnity and public liability together. If you’ll see clients online, or clients who live in another country, tell your insurer. Cover for in-person work in one room doesn’t automatically stretch to everything else.

3. Pay the ICO data protection fee (unless you’re exempt)

If you keep client information on a computer or phone, you almost certainly need to pay the data protection fee to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The ICO’s guidance for the health and social care sector says that if you provide a counselling service and hold personal information electronically, you’re required to pay. It gives the same answer for private practitioners such as physiotherapists, chiropractors and acupuncturists who are responsible for the records of the care they give.

Most sole traders fall into tier 1 (a turnover of up to £632,000 or no more than 10 staff), which is £52 a year, with £5 off if you pay by direct debit. There’s more detail in our guide to ICO registration for therapists.

4. Decide how you’ll keep records

Before your first client, decide where your notes will live, who can see them, and how long you’ll keep them. Your professional body sets the expectations. The HCPC, for example, requires full, clear and accurate records kept securely. UK GDPR requires that you keep personal data no longer than you need it.

Write a short retention policy and tell clients about it at the start. BACP’s guidance is that a therapist should make it clear before therapy begins whether they make notes, how long they keep them and what happens to them. Our guide to how long to keep client notes goes through the professional-body guidance in detail.

Two related jobs:

A privacy notice telling clients what you collect, why, and who you share it with.
An intake and consent form covering confidentiality and its limits, your cancellation policy, and how you’ll contact the client.

5. Register with HMRC

If you earn more than £1,000 from self-employment in a tax year (6 April to 5 April), you must register for Self Assessment as a sole trader. The deadline is 5 October after the end of the tax year you need to file for: for the 2025 to 2026 tax year, that’s 5 October 2026. HMRC says you could get a penalty if you tell it after that date.

From the day you start trading, keep records of income and expenses. You must keep them for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline for the relevant tax year.

On VAT: you must register if your taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000. You don’t have to register if you only sell VAT-exempt services. Whether your services are exempt depends on what you do and how you’re registered, so check with HMRC or an accountant rather than assuming.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is also being phased in for sole traders, starting with higher earners. See Making Tax Digital for practitioners for the thresholds and dates.

6. Set your prices and your policies

Pricing is personal, but a few principles hold for most practices:

Price the whole session, not just the hour. Your fee has to cover notes, supervision, CPD, insurance, room hire, software and the weeks you don’t work.
Decide on packages early. Blocks of sessions or a monthly subscription suit some clients and smooth out your income. Work out whether they’re refundable before you sell one.
Write your cancellation policy down. The government’s guidance on fair contracts says that non-refundable prepayments (including deposits) and cancellation charges should reflect a genuine estimate of what you’ll lose, must not be excessive, and must be made prominent to the customer. A policy the client saw, understood and agreed to is fairer and easier to enforce.

There’s more on cancellation terms in our guide to reducing no-shows.

7. Make it easy to book

Clients who can see your availability and book a slot themselves don’t have to wait for you to reply to an email. At a minimum, you need:

a page that says who you are, who you work with, where (or whether online), and what it costs
a way to see available times and book one
a confirmation that tells the client what happens next

MyWellOps gives you a booking page and a widget you can embed on your own website. If you use it, clients can switch on email reminders 24 hours and 2 hours before a session, and you can send prepaid SMS reminders to UK mobile numbers.

8. Decide how you’ll get paid

Chasing payment after a session is awkward for both sides. The common options are:

Pay at booking. The client pays when they book, and the session is settled before it happens.
Invoice after the session. This is more flexible but means more admin, and more money outstanding.
Packages and subscriptions. The client pays up front for a block of sessions or a monthly plan.

In MyWellOps, paid bookings are invoiced at the moment of booking and paid by card through Stripe, and you can sell bundles and subscriptions. Whatever you use, make sure each payment ends up in the records you keep for HMRC.

9. Sort out the paperwork clients sign

Get intake forms and consent forms signed before the first session, not in its first ten minutes. MyWellOps includes 227 document templates, including intake and consent forms, which clients sign in the client portal. If a document isn’t signed after three days, the client gets an email reminder. Whatever tool you use, keep signed copies with the client’s record.

A short launch checklist

Registered with your regulator, or a member of a professional body
Professional indemnity (and public liability) insurance in place
ICO fee paid, or exemption confirmed
Privacy notice, retention policy and consent form written
Registered for Self Assessment, with a system for income and expense records
Prices, packages and cancellation policy written down
Booking and payment set up and tested with a friend

None of this needs to be perfect on day one. It does need to exist. If you’re unsure about any rule that applies to your profession, check with your regulator, professional body, HMRC or the ICO before you rely on it.

Get booked

Run the session

Stay in touch

Get paid

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