Job summary
Would you like to join an innovative and integrated psychology team who work in a well-established Adult Haematology department? We have a vacancy for a new permanent 8b HCPC registered Principal/Deputy Lead Practitioner Psychologist in Adult Haematology who has a doctoral degree or equivalent in clinical, counselling or health psychology.
This permanent post is 0.88 wte (33 hours per week). We have short term funding for full time hours and this can be discussed at interview. As a flexible working organisation, we are open to discuss flexible working on appointment.
Main duties of the job
Strategy, service development and project work
- Work with the consultant psychologist and relevant leads within the directorate to oversee and deliver/implement key strategic developments, tasks and promote good governance
- Deputise for 8c as required
- Represent the service internally and externally to the organisation in various meetings, e.g. Psychology leads meetings, as agreed with consultant psychologist
- Propose and implement policy and service development and work with lead to develop policies and guidance related to governance and operation of Haematology Psychology Service (HPS)
- Lead in specific service areas as agreed with consultant psychologist e.g. therapeutic groups and psychoeducation workshops; neuropsychology (depending on experience/competencies); Sickle cell multidisciplinary clinics, teaching and training
- Co-ordinate and oversee quality patient service delivery, including triage, referral tracking, operational performance, waitlist management and outcomes.
- Service related projects, related to audit, service evaluation and research
Direct Clinical care: staff and patients
- Supervision and management of qualified psychology staff and assistant psychologists
- Appraisal (development of staff) and recruitment of staff
- User engagement informed staff training; staff support, consultation and de-briefs
- Delivery of psychological therapies to people with haematology disorders and/or significant others
About us
You will be working in a team who value your unique experience, ideas and interests. You will work alongside a Consultant Clinical & Health Psychologist, a Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist, 2 Clinical Psychologists, a Health Psychologist, and a Senior Assistant Psychologist. We provide regular placements for Doctoral clinical psychology trainees, MSC healthy psychology trainees and psychology undergraduates. There is a strong ethos within the team of supporting each other, with access to reflective practice, learning spaces and Trust wellbeing initiatives.
Our mission is to be a visible, accessible, high quality service that takes a patient-centred, evidence-based, and needs-led approach to providing psychological support to adults with blood disorders and their families in both inpatient and outpatient settings.
The team is committed to equity and ensuring that the contributions of all members are respected and valued. Our service is recognised for being accessible to patients and staff and strives to be as representative of the local population as much as possible. We would particularly welcome applicants who can add to the diversity of the existing team and who value working with diverse communities.
Job description
Job responsibilities
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Clinical:
- To provide specialist expertise in the psychological care of adults and young people (mostly 16 years upwards) with haemoglobinopathies, medical haematology conditions and haemophilia, on an inpatient and outpatient basis.
- To provide specialist psychological assessments of patients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with patients, family members and others involved as necessary. This may include cognitive assessment depending on the post holders competencies)
- To collaboratively formulate and implement plans for the psychological management of a patients psychological adjustment and mental health problems using a range of approaches, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of their problems, and employing methods based upon available current evidence of efficacy and effectiveness, across the full range of care settings.
- To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
- To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
- To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of patients whose problems are managed by creative and flexible psychologically based care plans.
- To provide specialist psychological advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
- To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.
- To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
- To respond to urgent referrals to support the management of challenging interactions between staff and inpatients.
- To act as care coordinator where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating, planning and review of care plans including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care.
- To communicate in a respectful, considered, timely, and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.
Teaching, training, and supervision
- To develop training packages for other professionals along with the Consultant Clinical Psychologist
- To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior applied psychologist and, where appropriate, from other senior professional colleagues.
- To gain any additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to applied psychology and/or the service (as agreed with the professional psychology manager).
- To provide highly specialist psychological consultation and professional and clinical supervision to colleagues and others and to contribute to a psychologically informed framework within the service.
- To provide professional and clinical supervision of assistant psychologists and clinical/health/counselling psychologists.
- To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical, health and/or counselling psychology, as appropriate.
- To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.
Management, recruitment, policy and service development
- 1. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
- To manage the workloads of assistant and clinical/health/counselling psychologists, within the framework of the team/services policies and procedures and be responsible for performance management, appraisal and recruitment.
- To be involved, as appropriate, in the short listing and interviewing of assistant/graduate psychologists and psychologists.
- To contribute to the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and developing the psychology service.
- To attend as required strategic or operational planning meetings for HPS within Haematology/H&T.
Research and service evaluation
- To contribute to the development of services, both locally and nationally, through initiating, undertaking and supervising complex service evaluation and audit.
- To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
- To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.
- To ensure that comprehensive service evaluation is undertaken including ascertaining the views of service users and referrers to the service along with senior team.
- To initiate, design and recruit to psychological research studies within the context of the team and assist with writing up.
- To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through publications in peer reviewed journals and oral presentations internally and at national and international conferences.
General
- To have established an area of specialist clinical or research skills relevant to work within the adult haematology setting through personal development plans agreed with the post-holders manager.
- To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the post holders professional and service managers.
- To have developed skills in clinical supervision, in selection and recruitment, and in other areas of service development appropriate to the post, through attending relevant courses and through collaboration with more senior colleagues.
- To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional and clinical supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of applied psychology and related disciplines.
- To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self- governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the Health Care Professions Council, British Psychological Society, and Trust policies and procedures.
- To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group and mental health.
Job description
Job responsibilities
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Clinical:
- To provide specialist expertise in the psychological care of adults and young people (mostly 16 years upwards) with haemoglobinopathies, medical haematology conditions and haemophilia, on an inpatient and outpatient basis.
- To provide specialist psychological assessments of patients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with patients, family members and others involved as necessary. This may include cognitive assessment depending on the post holders competencies)
- To collaboratively formulate and implement plans for the psychological management of a patients psychological adjustment and mental health problems using a range of approaches, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of their problems, and employing methods based upon available current evidence of efficacy and effectiveness, across the full range of care settings.
- To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
- To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
- To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of patients whose problems are managed by creative and flexible psychologically based care plans.
- To provide specialist psychological advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
- To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.
- To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
- To respond to urgent referrals to support the management of challenging interactions between staff and inpatients.
- To act as care coordinator where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating, planning and review of care plans including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care.
- To communicate in a respectful, considered, timely, and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.
Teaching, training, and supervision
- To develop training packages for other professionals along with the Consultant Clinical Psychologist
- To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior applied psychologist and, where appropriate, from other senior professional colleagues.
- To gain any additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to applied psychology and/or the service (as agreed with the professional psychology manager).
- To provide highly specialist psychological consultation and professional and clinical supervision to colleagues and others and to contribute to a psychologically informed framework within the service.
- To provide professional and clinical supervision of assistant psychologists and clinical/health/counselling psychologists.
- To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical, health and/or counselling psychology, as appropriate.
- To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.
Management, recruitment, policy and service development
- 1. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
- To manage the workloads of assistant and clinical/health/counselling psychologists, within the framework of the team/services policies and procedures and be responsible for performance management, appraisal and recruitment.
- To be involved, as appropriate, in the short listing and interviewing of assistant/graduate psychologists and psychologists.
- To contribute to the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and developing the psychology service.
- To attend as required strategic or operational planning meetings for HPS within Haematology/H&T.
Research and service evaluation
- To contribute to the development of services, both locally and nationally, through initiating, undertaking and supervising complex service evaluation and audit.
- To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
- To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.
- To ensure that comprehensive service evaluation is undertaken including ascertaining the views of service users and referrers to the service along with senior team.
- To initiate, design and recruit to psychological research studies within the context of the team and assist with writing up.
- To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through publications in peer reviewed journals and oral presentations internally and at national and international conferences.
General
- To have established an area of specialist clinical or research skills relevant to work within the adult haematology setting through personal development plans agreed with the post-holders manager.
- To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the post holders professional and service managers.
- To have developed skills in clinical supervision, in selection and recruitment, and in other areas of service development appropriate to the post, through attending relevant courses and through collaboration with more senior colleagues.
- To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional and clinical supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of applied psychology and related disciplines.
- To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self- governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the Health Care Professions Council, British Psychological Society, and Trust policies and procedures.
- To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group and mental health.
Person Specification
Experience
Essential
- Substantial experience of working as a qualified practitioner psychologist at the highly specialist level in haematology or physical health setting with clients presenting with a range of psychological needs of a complex nature
- Experience of providing supervision and management to qualified, pre-qualified and trainee psychology staff
- Experience of representing psychology within an MDT, showing respect for different approaches and a desire to work to collaboratively to enhance team cohesion and support
- Experience of developing and carrying out complex audit, research and service evaluation projects
- Experience of initiating and leading an area of service development
- Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts
Desirable
- Experience in the psychological management of haematological disorders, chronic pain
- Experience of undertaking and interpreting neuropsychological assessments and writing reports based on the results
- Experience of frequent management of 'behaviour that challenges' to a satisfactory and safe outcome
Knowledge/Qualifications
Essential
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies and how to apply these in a flexible way, according to a person's main and presenting concerns
- Highly specialist knowledge of the literature and psychological problems associated with haematology and/or pain and/or physical health matters
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in relation to those who show chronic and complex inter-personal ways of relating that may make it difficult for them to engage with medical teams/receive medical treatment/care
- Knowledge of how power may be exercised in discriminatory ways within healthcare, and to show skill in addressing acts of discrimination at the level of the individual and organisation
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
- Doctoral level qualification or its equivalent in Clinical, Health or Counselling Psychology as accredited by BPS
- Registered with HCPC as practitioner psychologist
Desirable
- Knowledge of policy and guidelines related to haematology care that highlight and inform psychological ways of working with both individuals living with haematological conditions and the wider system supporting them (professionals and significant others)
- Received formal training in supervision of other psychologists
- Training and/or qualification in a specific area of psychological expertise beyond Doctorate
Skills
Essential
- Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional
- Well-developed leadership skills and ability to work effectively as a resource and role model for the inter- and multidisciplinary team, and contribute to effective team functioning colleagues both within and outside the NHS
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
- Significant experience and ability to undertake risk assessment of client in relation to self and others, and refer on to appropriate services as necessary
Desirable
- Skill to sensitively manage staffs' performance related concerns
Person Specification
Experience
Essential
- Substantial experience of working as a qualified practitioner psychologist at the highly specialist level in haematology or physical health setting with clients presenting with a range of psychological needs of a complex nature
- Experience of providing supervision and management to qualified, pre-qualified and trainee psychology staff
- Experience of representing psychology within an MDT, showing respect for different approaches and a desire to work to collaboratively to enhance team cohesion and support
- Experience of developing and carrying out complex audit, research and service evaluation projects
- Experience of initiating and leading an area of service development
- Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts
Desirable
- Experience in the psychological management of haematological disorders, chronic pain
- Experience of undertaking and interpreting neuropsychological assessments and writing reports based on the results
- Experience of frequent management of 'behaviour that challenges' to a satisfactory and safe outcome
Knowledge/Qualifications
Essential
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies and how to apply these in a flexible way, according to a person's main and presenting concerns
- Highly specialist knowledge of the literature and psychological problems associated with haematology and/or pain and/or physical health matters
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in relation to those who show chronic and complex inter-personal ways of relating that may make it difficult for them to engage with medical teams/receive medical treatment/care
- Knowledge of how power may be exercised in discriminatory ways within healthcare, and to show skill in addressing acts of discrimination at the level of the individual and organisation
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
- Doctoral level qualification or its equivalent in Clinical, Health or Counselling Psychology as accredited by BPS
- Registered with HCPC as practitioner psychologist
Desirable
- Knowledge of policy and guidelines related to haematology care that highlight and inform psychological ways of working with both individuals living with haematological conditions and the wider system supporting them (professionals and significant others)
- Received formal training in supervision of other psychologists
- Training and/or qualification in a specific area of psychological expertise beyond Doctorate
Skills
Essential
- Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional
- Well-developed leadership skills and ability to work effectively as a resource and role model for the inter- and multidisciplinary team, and contribute to effective team functioning colleagues both within and outside the NHS
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
- Significant experience and ability to undertake risk assessment of client in relation to self and others, and refer on to appropriate services as necessary
Desirable
- Skill to sensitively manage staffs' performance related concerns
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Additional information
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
