Job summary
- Main area
- Senior Clinical Psychologist
- Grade
- Band 8a
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time
- Job ref
- 351-CEN2584-CL
- Employer
- Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Older Adults CMHT Central (65+)
- Town
- Preston
- Salary
- £57,528 - £64,750 pa
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 07/07/2026 23:59
Employer heading
Senior Clinical Psychologist
Band 8a
Our Vision is to provide the best mental health, learning disability, autism, community, and physical health services for the populations we serve.
As an integrated Trust, Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust (LSCFT) delivers a comprehensive range of services, including:
- Primary and secondary mental health care for children and adults, including specialist inpatient child and adolescent mental health provision, perinatal mental health, and forensic services with low and medium secure care.
- Specialist mental health inpatient care for individuals with learning disabilities, alongside specialist community support for children and adults with learning disabilities and autism, including intensive support.
- Extensive community physical health and well-being services for children and adults, covering prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and long-term condition management.
The Trust was first established in 2002 and employs approximately 7,500 staff who provide care from more than 400 sites. The organisation offers opportunities for medics, mental health, general nurses, children’s nurses, allied health professionals, psychology, administration and clerical staff, apprentices and volunteers, as well as those specialising in learning disabilities and community physical health services.
For more information visit our website via Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS FT.
Job overview
An exciting opportunity has arisen for a clinical psychologist with experience and enthusiasm in working with older people, to join the friendly and supportive Older Adult Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) for Preston, Chorley and South Ribble. You will have an interesting and varied role from running therapeutic groups to formulating complex case presentations.
The role involves: holding psychology consultation sessions with staff, direct clinical work, running formulation sessions, chairing complex case meetings, conducting staff training, group work, supporting staff well-being and supervising psychology and non-psychology colleagues when required. There will be an expectation that the post holder will also offer placements for trainee clinical psychologists.
The successful applicant will work closely with the team Principal Clinical Psychologist, the wider multi-disciplinary team, the team manager and clinical lead to continue to develop a high quality, community-orientated service for older people.
The post is professionally attached to the locality older adult psychology team and wider network, both of which offer a friendly and supportive space, with a strong commitment to providing quality services for older people in Lancashire. The postholder will receive regular clinical supervision from the team principal psychologist.
Main duties of the job
1. To provide a qualified Clinical Psychology Service to patients of the nominated team(s) including the provision of enhanced specialist psychological assessment and therapy, working within the policies, procedures and protocols applicable to the service.
2. To offer advice and consultation on patients’ psychological care to psychology and non-psychology colleagues and to other, non-professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the service’s policies and procedures. To develop advanced skills in consultancy by implementing formal systems of consultancy within the nominated team(s), as directed and guided by your Locality Professional Lead and his/her deputies.
3. To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area in which the postholder works.
Working for our organisation
LSCFT values diversity and inclusion, recognising that talent from varied backgrounds creates a flexible, creative, and effective workforce. We actively challenge discrimination and welcome applications from all, regardless of age, disability (including those with experience of accessing or caring for someone who has accessed mental health or learning disability services), ethnicity, gender, religion, belief, or sexual orientation.
Our aim is to reflect the communities we serve, so we particularly encourage applications from under-represented groups. If you’d like to discuss your application, please ask.
We also welcome individuals with lived experience relevant to the role or service area, as your insight brings authenticity to our services.
LSCFT support flexible working, we believe that a positive work/life balance benefits NHS employees through improved health and wellbeing. We would consider working patterns such as term time, part time, compressed hours and flexi-time.
The wellbeing of our people is at the heart of everything we do. We offer a wide range of resources, tools and support to help you thrive both in and out of work.
Explore our full wellbeing offer here: Keeping our workforce well
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please see the attached job description and person specification for more information about this role.
Person specification
Education/ Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Doctorate in Clinical Psychology or equivalent for those who trained prior to 1996, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS.
Knowledge
Essential criteria
- An increased level of knowledge relevant to this post equivalent to a post-graduate diploma (in addition to entry level qualification)
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
- Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS by completion of CPD log demonstrating a minimum of 40 hours per year.
- Knowledge of legislation relevant to the patient group.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of patients across a range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings
- Experience of working with a wide variety of patient 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
- Demonstrable evidence of a continuing commitment to developing expertise in psychological assessment and intervention
- Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for patient’s psychological care and both as a professionally qualified care co-ordinator and also within the context of multidisciplinary care plan
Personal
Essential criteria
- 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.
Personal
Essential criteria
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
- Well developed skills in communicating 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.
- Formal training in supervision of other psychologists
- Ability to sustain intense levels of concentration responding and participating as required.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Application numbers
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Suzanne Kennedy
- Job title
- Clinical Psychologist - Mental Health
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07866156859
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