Principal Practitioner Psychologist & Clinical Lead for Croydon IST

Job summary

The Croydon Intensive Support Team (IST) is a new initiative,established to reduce the number of adults with a learning disability or autism being admitted to hospital, minimizing the length of stay, and ensuring that care is person centered and least restrictive.

The Croydon IST will consist of a multidisciplinary, multiagency team working to:

• Provide intensive support to people living within Croydon to ensure that they are well supported to remain in borough in the least restrictive environments,
• Support people living out of borough with plans to move back to Croydon or move on to another service,
• Develop the skills and expertise of local providers to be able to support complex identified people living in borough.

The small team will be led by a clinical psychologist alongside a behaviour specialist and a specialist speech and language therapist employed by Croydon Health Services (CHS), as well as a Transforming Care Nurse and Peer Support Worker employed by South London and the Maudsley and an advanced practitioner employed by Croydon Local Authority.

Croydon IST is funded initially for 12 months as a pilot project and the outcomes of the pilot will be used to make recommendations as to whether, and in what format, any long-term commissioning of an enhanced service.

Main duties of the job

Principal Practitioner Psychologist & Clinical Lead for Croydon IST (Band 8b)

• To develop, co-ordinate and ensure the systematic provision of a psychology/behavioural service to adults with intellectual disabilities, autism or both whose behaviours significantly challenge and place them at risk of an admission/placement breakdown in the context of the 'complex care' (formerly Transforming Care cohort) agenda and personally provide highly specialist clinical input. These individuals would be typically referred and listed on the Croydon Adult Dynamic Support Register.
• To contribute to enabling other staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create a psychologically safe environment.
• To provide clinical supervision and consultation as appropriate, functioning as a lead specialist in Positive Behaviour Support, Systemic approaches and Psychological provision for the 'complex care' (formerly Transforming Care) as part of Croydon IST
• To ensure that systems are in place and working effectively for the clinical and professional supervision and support of other psychologists within Croydon IST.
• To undertake service evaluation, audit, research and policy development.

About us

Croydon Health Services NHS Trust provide hospital and community services from a number of community and specialist clinics throughout Croydon. The Trust was formed on 1st August 2010 through the integration of Croydon Community Health Services and Mayday Healthcare NHS Trust. Around 4,100 staff provide services for a population of over 360,000 people who are relatively young with a high level of ethnic diversity.

Our main hospital site, Croydon University Hospital is one of the busiest in London. We're also leading the way in providing more healthcare outside hospitals at clinics, specialist centres and in people's homes. Our experienced district nursing teams, Allied Health Professionals and community matrons look after people of all ages across Croydon and our Children's Hospital at Home cares for children with long-term conditions without them having to come to hospital.

Across the NHS everyone is working hard to meet growing demand and we're no exception. But with the right people on board, we are rising to this challenge, putting our people in the driving seat, encouraging innovation and transforming our services to give local people the quality of care they deserve. Croydon Health Services puts a great deal of importance on education and training throughout the careers of all of our staff. As well as offering access to a range of core skills training and professional development.