Job summary
This is an exciting opportunity to join a warm and friendly team making a real difference to those living with palliative conditions and at end of life. The post holder will join existing psychological therapists working in palliative care and will be based within the Macmillan Oncology and Palliative Care Psychological Support Service, which is part of the wider CNWL clinical health psychology service.
The post involves providing a service to palliative service users and their carers across the Hillingdon Borough as part of the wider psychological support services at end of life. This is a very varied role involving provision of psychological therapies, consultation and supervision of other health professionals and also teaching/training. The post involves working flexibly into a broad range of settings including inpatient services, outpatient services, nursing and care homes, day centre and home settings. Service provision will involve liaison with more than one team and travelling to different sites in Hillingdon.
Main duties of the job
The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.
The psychological support team works closely with other palliative care services including CNWL community palliative care team, The Hillingdon Hospital Palliative Care Team, Oncology services at The Hillingdon Hospital, and services at Harlington Hospice and Michael Sobell Hospice. There will be opportunities to contribute to service developments and innovations.
In order to be shortlisted for this post, applicants who are psychotherapists must be BACP or UKCP accredited (or equivalent); applicants who are counselling/clinical psychologists require HCPC registration.
About us
This is an exciting opportunity to join a thriving clinical health psychology department (11 wte's), offering services to a range of specialities across the Hospital. The service is part of a large (50 wte's) multi-speciality Clinical Psychology department and has good links with other specialities within the department. We actively encourage and support CPD and service-related research. We take trainees from the London Regional training courses in Clinical Psychology and have academic links in applied psychology with Brunel University.
The successful applicant will be an NHS employee and may therefore have contact with vulnerable service users. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been necessary to take significant steps to protect the health and safety of our staff, service users and those attending our sites. In order to comply with our duty of care, we require our staff to have the COVID vaccine and we will ask for proof of vaccination during the recruitment process. Vaccination will be a condition of employment unless an exemption applies.
Job description
Job responsibilities
The post holder will be expected to provide a psychological service to palliative patients across the Hillingdon Borough as part of the wider psychological support services at end of life. This will involve providing services in a broad range of settings namely, inpatient services outpatient services, nursing and care homes, hospice, day centre and home settings across the Borough of Hillingdon. Service provision within this scope will involve liaison with more than one team and travelling to different sites in Hillingdon.
KEY RESULT AREASClinical:1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of palliative patients based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex 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 wellbeing / mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.3. 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.4. 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.5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.6. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.7. 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.8. 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.9. To communicate in a skilled 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 supervision1. To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.2. To continue to gain wider post-qualification experience of clinical psychology /counselling psychology / specialist psychotherapy and the amount and nature of such experience to be agreed with the head of specialty.3. To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to other MDT staffs psychological work, as appropriate.4. To provide professional and clinical supervision of assistant/graduate psychologists and, as appropriate, to contribute to the supervision of individual cases for trainee clinical / counselling psychologists.5. To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical psychology.6. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.
Job description
Job responsibilities
The post holder will be expected to provide a psychological service to palliative patients across the Hillingdon Borough as part of the wider psychological support services at end of life. This will involve providing services in a broad range of settings namely, inpatient services outpatient services, nursing and care homes, hospice, day centre and home settings across the Borough of Hillingdon. Service provision within this scope will involve liaison with more than one team and travelling to different sites in Hillingdon.
KEY RESULT AREASClinical:1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of palliative patients based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex 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 wellbeing / mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.3. 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.4. 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.5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.6. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.7. 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.8. 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.9. To communicate in a skilled 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 supervision1. To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.2. To continue to gain wider post-qualification experience of clinical psychology /counselling psychology / specialist psychotherapy and the amount and nature of such experience to be agreed with the head of specialty.3. To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to other MDT staffs psychological work, as appropriate.4. To provide professional and clinical supervision of assistant/graduate psychologists and, as appropriate, to contribute to the supervision of individual cases for trainee clinical / counselling psychologists.5. To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical psychology.6. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology (or its equivalent) including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the HCPC and/or BPS
- Registration as a Clinical Psychologist / Counselling Psychologist with the HCPC
- Core mental health/social welfare professional registration (i.e. Occupational Therapist, Social Worker, Registered Mental Health Nurse)
- Masters level qualification in one or more modality of relevant psychotherapy.
- Accreditation with appropriate psychotherapy body eg. BABCP/UKCP/BACP for the model of psychotherapy relevant to this post
Desirable
- Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice especially relevant to palliative care / long term conditions / oncology.
Experience
Essential
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical 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.
Desirable
- Experience of working in palliative care / long term conditions / oncology settings
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
- Experience of the application of psychotherapy and/or applied 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, complex, highly technical and/or 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.
Desirable
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
Other
Essential
- Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
- Car user
Desirable
- Personal experience of mental health problems
- Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology (or its equivalent) including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the HCPC and/or BPS
- Registration as a Clinical Psychologist / Counselling Psychologist with the HCPC
- Core mental health/social welfare professional registration (i.e. Occupational Therapist, Social Worker, Registered Mental Health Nurse)
- Masters level qualification in one or more modality of relevant psychotherapy.
- Accreditation with appropriate psychotherapy body eg. BABCP/UKCP/BACP for the model of psychotherapy relevant to this post
Desirable
- Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice especially relevant to palliative care / long term conditions / oncology.
Experience
Essential
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical 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.
Desirable
- Experience of working in palliative care / long term conditions / oncology settings
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
- Experience of the application of psychotherapy and/or applied 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, complex, highly technical and/or 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.
Desirable
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
Other
Essential
- Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
- Car user
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.
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
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).
