Job summary
- Main area
- Psychologist
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8a
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 820-7331334-ASR
- Employer
- Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- citywide
- Town
- citywide
- Salary
- £55,690 - £62,682 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 04/09/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Band 8a Practitioner Psychologist
NHS AfC: Band 8a
Job overview
Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist in Neuropsychology
Interviews 28th August 2025
We have an exciting opportunity for a Clinical Psychologist, experienced in Neuropsychology and rehabilitation, to join our Neuropsychology team. It is a great time to be joining our us as we further develop our services across inpatient, outpatient and community settings.
The role will involve neuropsychological assessment and intervention within multidisciplinary neurorehabilitation teams through direct work with patients, families and carers, and through supporting the work of multidisciplinary colleagues. The post holder will be part of neurorehabilitation services as well as joining a team of Psychologists working within physical health and rehabilitation services.
They will supervise and support the psychological assessments and therapy provided by other psychology staff and others who provide psychologically based care and treatment.
They will support a culture of research and utilise research skills for audit, policy and service developments and propose and implement policy changes within the service and the broader multidisciplinary team. They will also be highly visible and, accessible and a figure to whom staff, patients and their families, can turn to for assistance, advice and support.
Main duties of the job
Neuropsychological assessment, formulation and intervention within neurorehabilitation services with patients, families and carers.
Interdisciplinary working with colleagues to support the progression of rehabilitation interventions.
Supporting the development of psychologically-informed practice in services.
Assessment and management of risk.
Research, audit and evaluation of services.
Teaching, training and supervision.
Supervision is available within the team for those seeking to pursue further training in Neuropsychology to gain eligibility for the Specialist Register of Clinical Neuropsychologists. We have also previously been successful in obtaining funding for aspects of this training.
Working for our organisation
Be Part of Our Team...
Birmingham is a vibrant, rich, ethnically diverse city, with a large population of young people. Join Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BCHC) where more than 5000 members of staff work across Birmingham and the West Midlands to deliver a wide range of community and specialist healthcare services. BCHC delivers over a hundred clinical services, in people's homes, health centres, clinics and inpatient facilities. This includes services for children, young people, parents and families as well as adults and community services, two community hospitals, services for people with learning disabilities, the internationally recognised West Midlands Rehabilitation Centre and one of Europe’s leading Dental Hospitals and School of Dentistry. We deliver all of this with a commitment to integrated, personalised care that is rooted in our local communities. We have an ambition to deliver outstanding, integrated care as one of the key NHS providers in the West Midlands.
Our range of healthcare service provision within the ASR Division also offers opportunities to develop clinical leadership skills and be involved with clinical projects and pathway development. The Psychology Service offers support and close links with other psychologists through facilitated reflective practice groups, CPD events and team meetings. There are good links with the local DClinPsy training courses and the MSCi pathway at Birmingham and Coventry Universities.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
For full details of responsibilities please see attached job description
1. To provide specialist psychological assessment of clients based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological assessment, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care.
2. Deliver and present highly complex 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.
3. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s psychological problems. This is to be based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods of proven efficiency, across the full range of care settings.
4. To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups within and across teams. This would involve adjusting and refining psychological formulations and drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
5. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
6. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychological based standard care plans.
7. To provide highly specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to client’s formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
8. To ensure that all members of the service have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding the need of clients, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.
9. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management.
10. To act as key worker in services, ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the client’s needs, coordinating the work of others involved with care, taking responsibility for arranging goal planning reviews as required and communicating effectively with the client, his/her family and all others involved in the network of care, and to monitor progress during the multi-disciplinary interventions.
11. Specialist psychological assessment to communicate with clients with a wide range of presenting problems, including clients with complex communication difficulties. This requires managing unpredictable clinical situations; intense concentration; sitting for long periods while constantly being exposed to extreme emotional/psychological distress, including issues of sexual abuse or severe mental illness; frequent contact with carers in extremely distressed states; an ability to reflect and contain own emotions and those of others.
12. To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team.
13. To facilitate clinical visits to patients homes as necessary.
Person specification
Qualifications/Training
Essential criteria
- Post graduate Doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
- HCPC Registration as a Practitioner Psychologist
Desirable criteria
- Post-doctoral qualification, training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.
- Training in the supervision of doctoral level trainee psychologists.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Significant post qualification experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients with neurological conditions
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and individual and group-based treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including primary and secondary/specialist care and inpatient/residential, outpatient and community team settings.
- Experience of liaison work with other professionals and agencies.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity, experience of maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
- Experience of teaching, training and supervision.
- Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
Skills/Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Highly specialist skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management including specialist clinical interviewing, behavioural observation, complex psychometric testing and specialist neuropsychological assessment
- Knowledge of the presentation, assessment of and intervention with people with complex mental health , neurological and neuropsychological difficulties
- 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 and experience in providing consultation to other professional and on professional groups, across agencies
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group.
Personal Qualities
Essential criteria
- Ability to manage under pressure; work to tight deadlines, evidencing excellent time management
- Able to work independently or as part of a team.
Desirable criteria
- Evidence of strong leadership skills, the ability to negotiate, persuade and influence at a senior level with a supportive style whilst also able to take difficult decisions and act assertively
- Keen to develop services in line with service, educational and research priorities with the service.
Other Role Requirements
Essential criteria
- Ability to work within a multicultural framework.
- 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 reach scheduled appointments across the city in a timely fashion and to travel independently Trust wide
- Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings
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
- Dr Christian Holmes
- Job title
- ASR Divisional Lead Consultant Psychologist
- Email address
- [email protected]
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