Job summary
- Main area
- Clinical Psychologist
- Grade
- Band 8a
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Part time - 22.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 222-LS-Man-195
- Employer
- West London NHS Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- St Bernards
- Town
- London
- Salary
- £63,665 - £70,887 per annum inclusive of HCAS (Outer)
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 18/09/2026 17:00
- Interview date
- 24/09/2026
Employer heading
Clinical Psychologist
Band 8a
West London NHS Trust provides a full range of mental health, community and physical healthcare services for children, adults and older people living in the London boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hounslow.
We also provide some specialist services that are commissioned regionally, such as our medium secure services; and nationally, such as the Cassel Hospital for people with complex and severe personality disorder and our high secure services at Broadmoor Hospital.
Job overview
Are you a Clinical or Counselling Psychologist who enjoys working with complexity, supporting teams and bringing psychological thinking into everyday clinical practice?
We have an exciting opportunity for a Band 8a Highly Specialist Clinical/Counselling Psychologist to join Mental Health SPA on a 0.6 WTE basis.
Working across SPA, NHS 111 Mental Health and MH UCR, you will have the opportunity to influence psychological practice across a large and diverse urgent and crisis care service.
This is a varied role with a strong focus on consultation, formulation, reflective practice, teaching and supporting the wider multidisciplinary team, alongside specialist direct clinical work where this adds value.
You will join an experienced multidisciplinary service and have scope to shape and develop the psychological offer in response to the needs of staff and people accessing urgent mental health care.
Main duties of the job
You will:
• Provide specialist psychological assessment, formulation and intervention where indicated
• Offer consultation and psychological thinking around complex presentations and risk
• Lead and develop reflective practice and team formulation
• Support staff working with complex, repeated and challenging crisis presentations
• Provide teaching, training, consultation and supervision
• Promote psychologically informed and trauma-informed approaches to care
• Contribute to complex case reviews and wider multidisciplinary thinking
• Support service development, clinical governance, audit and evaluation
• Work alongside service leaders and psychology colleagues to develop the psychological offer
We are particularly interested in someone who enjoys working collaboratively, can bring psychological thinking into complex clinical environments and wants to make an impact beyond an individual caseload.
Working for our organisation
West London NHS Trust is one of the most diverse healthcare providers in the UK, delivering a range of mental health and physical healthcare and community services. The Trust runs Broadmoor Hospital, one of three high secure hospitals in the country, with an international reputation.
Our high secure services care for patients from South of England and we provide low and medium secure services across eight London boroughs. The Trust also provides mental and physical healthcare in three London boroughs (Ealing, Hounslow and Hammersmith & Fulham). We employ over 5,000 staff, of whom 59% are BME. Our turnover for 2024-25 is over £500m.
The Trust is rated as ‘Good’ overall by the Care Quality Commission. Forensic services are rated as ‘Outstanding’.
The Trust is an established partner and contributor in the development of the evolving North West London Integrated Care System and the Integrated Care Board. The Trust leads the NW London Children and Adolescent Mental Health provider collaborative.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The Candidate Pack provides an overview of the key tasks and responsibilities of the role, and the person specification outlines the qualifications, skills, experience and knowledge required. Please view as attached
The person specification below is not the full person specification, but outlines the criteria against which your application form will be assessed.
Person specification
Training & Qualifications
Essential criteria
- 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 BPS and/or Accredited CBT therapist with the BABCP with at least 3 years of experience working as a band 7 or 8A.
- Professional registration with the Health and Care Professions Council and/ or equivalent registering body.
- Training in clinical supervision for doctoral, and equivalent, trainees and/or recognised supervision qualification.
Desirable criteria
- Evidence of post-doctoral training in psychological therapies relevant to severe and enduring mental health difficulties including for example DBT/ CBT-P/ Systemic Practice.
- Training in the supervision of psychological therapies.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Post qualification experience of working in mental health settings delivering specialist psychological assessment, formulation and interventions across a range of settings including community, primary care, inpatient, crisis services.
- Experience of working with a wide range of client groups across the whole life course presenting with a range of psychological problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity.
- Experience of providing clinical supervision to assistant/trainee or qualified psychologists, and/or other professionals.
- Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts including working with interpreters.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
- Experience of working in acute mental health services (inpatient wards, HTT, crisis intervention services, psychiatric liaison).
- Experience of having facilitated/co-facilitated psychological therapy groups
- Experience of facilitating reflective practice to teams.
- Experience of providing clinical supervision to junior psychologists and other non-psychology colleagues.
- Post qualification experience and/or training in working with adults affected by psychological trauma.
- Experience of service development/change leadership.
Knowledge & Skills
Essential criteria
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, formulation, intervention and management 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 service users, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
- 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.
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific psychological problems (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnosis, autism spectrum disorder).
- Knowledge and awareness of the trauma informed approach.
- Advanced specialist knowledge, both theoretical and practical, of psychology applied to clinical practice
- Able to provide and receive highly complex, highly sensitive or highly contentious information, where there are significant barriers to acceptance which need to be overcome using the highest level of interpersonal and communication skills such as would be required when communicating in a hostile, antagonistic or highly emotive atmosphere
- Able to make judgements involving highly complex facts or situations, which require the evaluation of a range of options (e.g. the assessment of specialist clinical conditions and the determination of treatment options), Where expert opinions may differ
- Able to plan, prioritise and organise own service user caseload, treatment programmes (individual or group) involving other staff, and other aspects of the work such as research activity
- Comprehensive IT skills
- Skills in administering psychological tests and standardised assessments.
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of quality improvement methodology.
- Knowledge of the Mental Health Act and Mental Capacity Act.
- Knowledge of the NHS Leadership Framework and Positive Leadership Models.
Personal
Essential criteria
- Able to sit for extended periods of time while demonstrating active listening skills.
- Able to maintain light physical effort for short periods.
- Ability to maintain a high degree of professionalism in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour including verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
- Ability to manage emotionally stressful situations including working with people affected by trauma, with people who engage in self-harming or aggressive behaviour.
- Ability to work independently and under pressure. Adaptable and able to work flexibly to respond to the service needs/priorities.
- Able to respond adaptably to rapidly changing service demands
Other
Essential criteria
- Knowledge of the professional code of conduct of the BPS and HCPC for practitioner psychologists.
- Must be capable of being guided by precedent, clearly defined policies, procedures and codes of conduct
- Able to reflect on own professional practice
- Willing to participate actively in CPD in line with BPS guidelines
- 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.
- Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
Desirable criteria
- Record of having published in either peer reviewed or academic or professional journals and/or books
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.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Sarah Rexon
- Job title
- Single Point of Access Service Manager
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Additional information
Charlotte Foord
If you have problems applying, contact
- Address
-
Human Resources – Trust Headquarters
West London NHS Trust
1 Armstrong Way - Southall
UB2 4SA
- Telephone
- Mob: 07483968676
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