Job responsibilities
Key Duties and Responsibilities
Provide highly specialist psychological assessment, formulation and intervention to patients referred to the Warwickshire Early Supported Discharge and Community Team for Stroke (ESD).
Provide highly specialist psychological care for individuals referred to the Clinical Health Psychology team, including formal psychological therapies.
Provide highly specialist psychological advice, guidance, training and consultation to members of the ESD and Community Stroke team, and across a wide range of agencies and settings where appropriate.
Work as an effective member within the interdisciplinary team.
Establish and maintain effective communication with various individuals and groups on complex and potentially stressful topics in a range of situations.
Supervise and manage Trainee Clinical Psychologists/Assistant Psychologists, within the framework of teams policies and procedures.
Utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and with other team members.
Contribute to team meetings and effective operation of the ESD and Community Stroke Team. To be an integral part of the clinical leadership for the ESD and Community Stroke Team. This will include working collaboratively with other therapy clinical specialists to support staff, service delivery and service development.
Demonstrate familiarity with the principles of the safeguarding of vulnerable adult procedures and legislation in relation to the patient group.
Communication
To liaise with the Service Lead, Clinical Team Leader, Multidisciplinary teams, Consultants and GPs and members of other agencies responsible for a patients care.
Work closely and collaboratively within the interdisciplinary team, consulting with colleagues and other professionals across health and social settings.
Communicate effectively and persuasively in a range of professional settings to ensure that other care providers have a clear understanding of the patients psychological needs and the most evidence-based approach to treatment and/or management approach.
Produce high quality verbal and written specialist psychological formulations and reports that aid evidence based clinical interventions for patients, carers and other professionals.
To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner to patients, families and carers, complex information concerning the assessments and treatment plans and provide specialist guidance as to optimal ways of managing, particularly in cases of cognitive impairment.
Use creative and flexible communication methods to engage patients with cognitive impairment or behavioural problems and their carer in the assessment and treatment process.
Analytical and Judgemental Skills/Freedom to Act
Work as an autonomous practitioner to the standards within professional guidelines and relevant clinical standards such as the HCPC Code of Conduct.
Adhere to the Trusts policies and procedures and report any difficulties in their application to line management.
Participate in the appropriate supervision systems including carrying out clinical supervision of Trainee Clinical Psychologists, Assistant Psychologists and professionals from other disciplines as appropriate.
Be responsible for own practice by seeking advice as required from the Principle Clinical Psychologist / Neuropsychologist.
To interpret and apply advanced evidence-based theoretical and clinical information from the highly specialist fields of Clinical Psychology, Neuropsychology, Health Psychology, Behavioural Therapy etc. to the highly complex assessment, formulation and management of the patient group.
To undertake risk assessment and risk management for relevant individual patients and to provide specialist advice for other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management.
To contribute to the reduction of risk in areas of responsibility.
Planning and Organisational Skills
Effectively plan and prioritise the competing demands of caseload, assessments, report writing and interdisciplinary working, on a daily basis.
Carry out advanced planning of specialist assessments, interventions and reviews of the psychological needs of the patients referred into the service.
Be responsible for implementing timely intervention for patients on caseload, following assessment and liaison with the interdisciplinary team.
Ensure that existing and newly developed quality standards are supported, and that wherever possible promote the completion of Service User/Patient/Client feedback forms as part of the service evaluation.
Have the flexibility required to respond effectively to unplanned service and caseload priorities.
To organise and promote evidence-based practice within the service.
Plan and organise specialist training covering a range of psychological approaches and issues relating to the management of adults with cognitive impairment as a result of a stroke event for delivery to multi agency professionals and non-professional carers.
Plan and organise learning experiences for Trainee Clinical Psychologists on placement, making sure opportunities are relevant and delivered at and appropriate level.
Physical Skills
Travel across Warwickshire to access patients in a range of locations such as their home, work environments or other community settings.
To be able to access a keyboard on a daily basis for the use of emails, data inputting, virtual clinical sessions where appropriate and for gathering information about current caseload.
Responsibility for Patients/Clients
Provide specialist psychological and neuropsychological assessments of patients with stroke. These assessments utilise specialist neuropsychological instruments, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with patients, family members (as appropriate) and others involved in the patients care and involve interpretation and integration of highly complex information from all these sources.
Formulate, implement and recommend plans to the interdisciplinary team, professionals in other agencies and families/carers as appropriate; for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a patients emotional, cognitive and behavioural problems based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the patients psychological difficulties, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
Provide expert specialist advice and guidance for interventions based on these formulations to the interdisciplinary team regarding the management and rehabilitation of these patients and contributing directly to their treatment/rehabilitation plan.
Responsible for implementing a range of specialist psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups by demonstrating the ability to synthesise different explanatory models and adjust/refine psychological formulations to guide specialist interventions.
Evaluate and make decisions about appropriate and evidenced based 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, in the context of stroke.
Exercise full responsibility and autonomy for the assessment, treatment and discharge of patients regarding psychological interventions, ensuring appropriate assessment, formulation and interventions, communicating with the referrer and others involved with the care.
Provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to patients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
Undertake risk assessment and risk management of individual patients and carers/families; as appropriate and to provide advice to other professionals on the psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
Act as care keyworker when appropriate, coordinating the work of others involved with care and communicating effectively with the patient, his/her family and all others involved in the network of care; and to monitor progress during the course of interdisciplinary interventions.
Responsible with others for facilitating effective interdisciplinary team working by providing psychological expertise and perspectives to optimise the effectiveness of assessment and treatment for individual patients.
Policy and Service Responsibilities
To contribute to the development of effective interagency structures to enable joint planning and collaborative working in relation to complex care decisions.
Responsible for ensuring the professional network have access to expert psychological frameworks to enable effective decision making and promote the most appropriate delivery of care.
Contribute to the development, implementation and review of psychological therapies applied within the rehabilitation setting within the Trust.
Comply with Trust policies and systems of information, including standards of record keeping and confidentiality, with particular reference to sharing of information protocols.
Monitor, analyse and interpret statistical data as specified by the ESD and Community Stroke Team.
Responsibility for Financial and Physical Resources
The post holder will have a personal duty of care of equipment and resources.
The post holder will be responsible for maintaining adequate physical resources.
The post holder will be responsible for security of goods and equipment.
The post holder does not administer, monitor or set budgets or have a responsibility for handling cash; e.g. clients or petty cash.
