Specialist Clinical/Counselling Health Psychologist

Job description

Job responsibilities

Clinical:

1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources, 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 problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework, 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 supervision

1. To attend regular clinical professional supervision.

2. To be active in continuous professional development, through reading, personal research and the attendance at training as agreed with the head of department.

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 psychologists.

5. To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or counselling psychology, as required by the head of specialty.

6. 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.

2. To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

3. To manage the workloads of assistant and graduate psychologists, within the framework of the team/services policies and procedures.

4. To be involved, as appropriate, in the shortlisting and interviewing of assistant/graduate psychologists.

Research and service evaluation

1. To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.

2. To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.

3. To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.

4. To familiarise themselves with, and to comply with, the Trusts requirements on research governance.

IT responsibilities (other than those used for research)

1. To use a computer to write letters, enter data into databases and maintain personal records.

General

1. 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 postholders professional and service manager(s).

2. 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 supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.

3. 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 British Psychological Society and Trust policies and procedures.

4. 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.

To be noted:

This is not an exhaustive list of duties and responsibilities, and the postholder may be required to undertake other duties which fall within the grade of the job, in discussion with the manager.

This job description will be reviewed regularly in the light of changing service requirements and any such changes will be discussed with the post holder.

The post holder is expected to comply with all relevant Trust policies, procedures and guidelines, including those relating to Equal Opportunities, Health and Safety and Confidentiality of Information and clinical governance including research governance.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology, including specifically two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS.

Desirable

• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.

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 the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of working in a health psychology setting.

Knowledge

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.

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).

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

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Clinical Health Psychology Dept, St Mary's Hospital

Praed St

London

W2 1NY

Employer's website

https://www.cnwl.nhs.uk/work (Opens in a new tab)