Principal Clinical Psychologist

Job description

Job responsibilities

Please see Job Description and Personal Specification for full details of role requirements.

Clinical:

1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the Older Peoples Mental Health service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the clients care.
2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings.

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.

1. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

1. To ensure that all members of the treating team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.

1. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management, including responsibilities within the policies and clinical duties to safeguarding vulnerable adults and children.

1. To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the clients needs, coordinating the work of others involved with care, taking responsibility for arranging CPA reviews as required and communicating effectively with the client, his/her family and all others involved in the network of care, and to monitor progress during the course of multi-disciplinary interventions.

1. To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, complex information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care. . This will require being able to convey this to clients, families and colleagues with a range of understanding and knowledge so will require the ability to be flexible, adaptive and simple but yet retain a sophisticated understanding and approach. This communication is likely to take place in situations which are highly emotive and with people who also have cognitive problems such as dementia that impacts their understanding and retention.

1. To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team.

1. To provide clinical placements for trainee clinical and/or counselling psychologists, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.
2. To provide post-qualification training (CPD) and clinical professional supervision to recently qualified clinical and/or counselling psychologists attached to the team.
3. To provide advice, consultation and training and clinical supervision to other members of the team for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve clients functioning.

1. To provide pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or counselling psychology as appropriate.

1. To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and post-graduate training and clinical supervision.

1. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.

1. To participate as a senior clinician in the development of a high quality, responsive and accessible service including advising both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
2. To exercise delegated responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to the service, whether in the form of additional qualified and unqualified graduate psychology staff, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of patients.

1. To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service/team.

1. To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistant, graduate, trainees and qualified clinical psychologists.

1. To provide day to day management of the psychological therapy staff within the OPMH service.

IT responsibilities.

1. To regularly enter and update information regarding clinical activity into the RiO clinical records system.
2. To be proficient in the use of IT for email, intranet and clinical record purposes. To be familiar with word processing, database and statistical packages, and to use such packages for complex data analysis as necessary. To use appropriate computer software to develop and create clinical or other service-related reports or documents.

Research and service evaluation

1. To take the psychology lead, as a senior clinician, in the evaluation, monitoring and development of the services operational policies, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit and ensuring incorporation of psychological frameworks for understanding and provision of high quality care.
2. To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other staff in the service.
3. To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.
4. To initiate project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve services to clients and their families.

1. To maintain registration with the Heath Professions Council as a Clinical Psychologist.

1. To ensure the development, maintenance and dissemination of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes.

1. To ensure the development and articulation of best practice in psychology within the service area and contribute across the service by exercising the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.

1. To maintain and promulgate 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 British Psychological Society, Health Professions Council and Trust policies and procedures.
2. 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

Qualification

Essential

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
• Registration with the Health Professions Council as a Clinical Psychologist.

Desirable

• Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.
• Recognised supervision training.
• Leadership or management training

Experience

Essential

• Substantial assessed experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist with 2 years at a highly specialist level.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in-patient and residential care settings severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of working with clients with severe and enduring mental health problems
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and also within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
• Experience of representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision

Desirable

• Experience in neuropsychological assessment with adults with comorbid mental health/psychological needs
• Experience of working in older peoples mental health services, including people with dementia and their carers
• Experience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care settings.
• Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.

Knowledge and skills

Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
• Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, highly technical, and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS.
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists
• Ability to use outcome measures and integrate these into therapy

Desirable

• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with medically unexplained symptoms, people with additional disabilities, people with dementia etc).
• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies and assessment methodologies
• Knowledge of approaches to leadership and management
• Experience of group work

Personal

Essential

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills enabling good working relationships with others within and external to the Trust.
• Maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of emotive and distressing problems.
• Interpersonally calm and able to defuse difficult situations
• Ability to form good working relationships and work as part of a team
• Motivated and proactive Works well under pressure
• Good organisational and time management skills, ability to plan and prioritise own work load

Desirable

• A commitment to and the evaluation of services and enthusiasm for audit, research and service evaluation.

Other

Essential

• Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours.
• Ability to identify, and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.

Desirable

• Personal experience of mental health problems.
• Experience of working within a multicultural framework.

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

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).

Employer details

Employer name

Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Memorial Hospital

Shooters Hill

London

SE18 3RG

Employer's website

http://oxleas.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)