Ministry of Defence (Defence Medical Services)

Band 7 Psychological Therapist

The closing date is 01 July 2025

Job summary

At Defence Primary Healthcare (DPHC) we are an inclusive, dedicated organisation working to provide outstanding care to our entitled personnel.

Are you a Band 7 Psychological Therapist looking for an exciting role, working alongside the military, which offers numerous benefits and opportunities? If the answer is yes, then we are looking to appoint a professional and patient focused individual with a strong commitment to providing a high-quality service to work within our friendly and welcoming team at Bulford Barracks, Wiltshire.

The vacant post is full time working 37.5 hours per week. Requests to work flexibly and/or part time will be considered, taking into account business needs.

Could this be the role for you? If so, we'd love to hear from you!

Benefits

Access to learning and development tailored to your role
An environment with flexible working options
A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity
NHS Pension
Access to onsite, state of the art gym
Large onsite free car park
Professional Registration fees reimbursed

Main duties of the job

The post holder will work within a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) setting to provide a specialised/occupational mental health service for all Service and entitled personnel within the Department of Community Mental Health (DCMH) and network as required.
They will have extensive experience of delivering psychological therapy in a stepped care service. This includes the delivery of evidence based interventions in line with NICE guidance for common mental health disorders.
The post holder will require robust clinical assessment and therapy skills and an understanding of an occupational role and needs of individuals presenting to the service.
Working with service personnel with complex common mental health disorder related problems for which cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is demonstrated to be clinically effective, individually, in groups and via face to face and digital platforms while undertaking a programme of training for this role.
To directly provide highly specialist psychological assessment and interventions to individuals and groups.
Clinically supervise less experienced therapists.
To be responsible for ensuring clinical outcome data is routinely entered and appropriately collated, and also lead in service evaluation, outcome measurement, audit and research projects to benefit service users.

About us

Our success depends on our people our Whole Force regular and reservist military, civil servants and contractors, all working as one, working together seamlessly to deliver for us.

Our civil servants are a central part of this Whole Force, developing strategy, making policy, supporting ministerial decision-making and Parliamentary processes. In fact, with over 2,000 different roles working across 650 sites around the world, now really is an excellent time to join one of the largest, most exciting departments in government.

The Ministry of Defence is committed to attracting and retaining people from across the full range of backgrounds and enabling flexible ways of working as the norm. We offer maternity, adoption or shared parental leave of up to 26 weeks full pay followed by 13 weeks of statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid, and paternity leave of 2 weeks full pay.

In return, you can expect a department that helps you learn and develop that recognises your expertise and contribution, both as an individual and part of a team.

If you've ever wanted to do more, see more, go further or be better, we have roles in more professions and vocations than ever before. Let's see where your future will take you, together.

Date posted

10 June 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 7

Salary

£46,148 to £52,809 a year Per Annum. Pro Rata for Part Time *pay award pending

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time, Job share

Reference number

K0003-25-0266

Job locations

Bulford Healthcare Facility

Kandy Road

Bulford Barracks

Salisbury

SP4 9AA

Job description

Job responsibilities

Duties and responsibilities for the role include but are not limited to:

To provide a timely and high-quality mental health service to all patients referred to the DCMH for assessment and treatment of mental health presentations.
A wide variety of clinical work depending on qualifications working within your abilities but also stretching your capability.
To act as a clinical resource and liaise with Medical Officers/General Practitioners (MO/GP) and offer advice to the chain of command on mental health matters, the administrative management of personnel with mental health difficulties and mental health promotion.
To work flexibly within 37.5 hours per week, with core service hours of 8am-5pm The team will be operational across a network so you will need to be flexible in where and how care is delivered.
To provide training in assessment and formulation and other CBT based practices to the team.
Deputise for the team manager and hold delegated professional management of the team as required.

Please refer to the attached Job Description and Person Specification for the full list of duties.

Selection Process

The sift will be completed within 10 working days of the vacancy closing date. Interviews will be held on a date to be confirmed.

The selection at sift stage will be based on your CV. At interview, you will be tested against the following Framework:

NHS Health & Wellbeing 2 (HWB2) - Assessment and care planning to meet Health and Wellbeing needs
NHS Health & Wellbeing 6 (HWB6) - Assessment and treatment planning
NHS Health & Wellbeing 7 (HWB7) - Interventions and Treatments
NHS General 6 (G6) - People Management
NHS General 1 (G1) - Learning and Development

Either a short presentation or vignette will be required at interview.

There will be no reimbursement for any travel expenses for the interview.

Please note the salary will be pro-rata where part time hours are undertaken.

The Ministry of Defence requires all candidates who are successful at interview to declare any outside interests. These declarations will be discussed with successful candidates following the interview process and before a formal offer of employment is made, as some outside interests may not be compatible with MOD civilian roles. This will not, in the majority of cases, prevent employment in MOD, but it is a measure that must be taken to ensure that appropriate mitigations can be put in place to manage any potential, perceived or actual conflicts of interest from the first day of employment.

All employees joining Ministry of Defence who are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a 6-month probation period (unless otherwise advised) effective from the employment start date.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check.

Please ensure you demonstrate that you have the required skills, knowledge, experience, qualifications and memberships in your CV and that you have saved it.

Please see the link to our YouTube channel for advice preparing your best responses with some hints and tips on answering behaviour-based questions. Hints and tips such as: Your behaviours can be based on situations from work, volunteering or home; match your situation to the behaviour requested and how to use your 250-word limit.https://www.youtube.com/@DMS_MilMed

Access to the NHS pension scheme is available to the successful candidate.

If found successful for this position, you will be required to provide evidence of your immunity to Hepatitis B. Please note that evidence of your vaccination is not a proof of your immunity, but your serology levels will be required. Failure to provide sufficient evidence may result in the offer of employment being withdrawn.

To be considered for this role, qualifications and memberships detailed must be held in full, prior to submitting your application.

There is no requirement to deploy as this is met by our uniformed personnel, but you will form the continuity of care required by our patients when based at home.

Requests to work flexibly and/or part time will be considered, taking into account business needs.

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. This is a non-contractual arrangement where all office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to capacity and any required workplace adjustments. Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD office, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements.

The post does NOT offer relocation expenses (move of home, excess fares or temporary transfer). Non-Standard move applicants will be eligible for the full package, subject to eligibility.

We encourage all our employees and prospective ones to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 subject to any exemptions that may apply. Please see the attached further information document for full details.

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points-based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical. This role does not meet that category, and we will not sponsor a visa. It is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points-based system.

Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected, and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.

This vacancy is part of the A Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/making-the-civil-service-a-great-place-to-work-for-veterans

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact dbscivpers-sgdmsresourcingteam@mod.gov.uk.

The Ministry of Defence is committed to providing a safe and healthy working environment for its staff which includes educating them on the benefits of not smoking, protecting them from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke and supporting those who want to give up smoking. Under the Smoke-Free Working Environment policy, Smoking and the use of all tobacco products (including combustible and chewing tobacco products) will not be permitted anywhere in the Defence working environment. The policy is Whole Force and includes all Defence personnel, contractors, visitors and other non-MOD personnel. All applicants seeking, considering, or accepting employment with the Ministry of Defence should be aware of this policy and that it is already in place at a number of Defence Establishments.