Job summary
- Main area
- Neonate Psychology
- Grade
- Band 8a
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Part time
- Job share
- Flexible working
- Job ref
- 434-SCS7763718
- Employer
- Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Stoke Mandeville Hospital
- Town
- Aylesbury
- Salary
- £55,690 - £62,682 per annum pro rata
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 17/03/2026 23:59
Employer heading
Practitioner Psychologist
Band 8a
Be part of our BHT family
Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust (BHT) is an integrated provider of acute hospital and community services for people living in Buckinghamshire and the surrounding area.
We care for over half a million patients every year:
- Provide specialist spinal services at our world renowned National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, the birthplace of the Paralympics
- Nationally recognised for urology and skin cancer services
- Regional specialist centre for burns, plastic surgery, dermatology, stroke and cardiac services
- Deliver community services in health centres, schools, patients’ own homes, community hospitals and community hubs.
More than 6,500 people from different nations, cultures and backgrounds work for us.
We would be happy to discuss possible flexible working options. We strive to be a family friendly, inclusive employer.
If you require any assistance in making this application, please contact [email protected] or phone 01494 734868.
We pride ourselves in being a great place to work and invite you to join our BHT family.
Job overview
An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Practitioner Psychologist who is keen to work in our Neonatal Unit (NNU). The funding for this post is a result of Psychology Leads for the Neonatal Operational Delivery Networks (ODN) across England co-producing a document recommending that all NNUs should have a psychologist in the neonatal team.
You will work collaboratively with the neonate’s parents and siblings to reduce the negative psychological consequences on the family of a neonate’s admission to the NNU. As part of the neonatal team you will work with and support your neonatal colleagues through, for example, supervision and training to help reduce any negative psychological impact of working in NNUs. As part of your role you will have contact with colleagues across the ODN and those working in the local Maternal Mental Health Service.
The model of provision is the hub and spoke model where you, working in one of the spokes, will be supervised by the Thames Valley Hub Lead Clinical Psychologist (the hub). The support you will receive will help you ensure appropriate governance of the unit and will bring knowledge of trusts and systems, commissioning requirements, audit, research and service development. You will be line managed by a Consultant Clinical Psychologist who works in the Trust and you will join a team of 24 Practitioner Psychologists who work in 14 services in the Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust.
Preferred working days are Tuesdays and Thursdays
Main duties of the job
You will be providing specialist psychological support to babies, their families and staff on the Neonatal Care Unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. Your role will also involve working in the multidisciplinary team who value psychology, to provide specialised advice and consultation on babies and families psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues.
There is a teaching and training programme in the team that you will part of and will be providing supervision for non-psychologist colleagues in order to enable them to identify early families who will benefit from specialist input. For example, developing and promoting screening tools for bedside staff to use.
Your research skills will be used for the purposes of audit, policy development and research and you will join with other practitioner psychologists in the Thames Valley and Wessex Neonatal ODN as well as with the Lead Psychologist in the ODN.
Preferred working days are Tuesdays and Thursdays
Working for our organisation
Why colleagues think we are "a great place to work!"
What does Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust offer you?
As part of our BHT family, you’ll benefit from learning and development opportunities to support your career progression.
Alongside NHS benefits of generous annual leave entitlement and pension scheme, you'll have access to NHS discount schemes.
We provide a range of health and wellbeing services to promote a healthy, happy workforce.
What do we stand for?
Our vision is to provide outstanding care, support healthy communities and be a great place to work.
Our mission is to provide personal and compassionate care every time.
We are working hard to increase diversity at all levels within the trust. We believe a diverse workforce can have a positive effect on both staff wellbeing and patient outcomes.
We welcome applications from black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates, LGBTQ+ candidates, candidates with disabilities and care-experienced candidates.
We are proud to achieve the Gold award for the Armed Forces Covenant and support applications from the Armed Forces Community. Please contact [email protected] (our Armed Forces Covenant Lead) if you would like guidance or assistance with your application.
We make employment decisions by matching our service needs with the skills and experience of candidates, regardless of age, disability, gender, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, or sexual orientation.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
For a comprehensive list of responsibilities and duties, please kindly refer to the Job Description and Person Specification by downloading the JD and PS attachment in the advert.
Person specification
Skills, Abilities & Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Ability to work independently and collaboratively within a team.
- Ability to cope with a fast paced work environment, maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems
- Ability to assess and monitor risk and draw up appropriate risk management plans.
- Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information, including contentious and highly distressing 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.
- Planning and organising skills for caseload management.
- Skills in self-management, including time-management
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance, including regular supervision, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour highly emotive material and challenging behaviour
- Experience of working within a multicultural framework, Skills in working with diversity.
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies as applied in a clinical health psychology setting.
- A commitment to the evaluation of services, enthusiasm for both multi-professional and uni-professional audit, and a desire to continue to develop expertise in the area.
- Approachable and empathic personality, excellent interpersonal and communication skills, and able to defuse difficult, volatile situations.
- Understanding of confidentiality.
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of practice governance and to support and maintain own and service’s standards of clinical practice.
- Able to contain and work with high levels of distress from clients and with organisational stress.
- Ability to exercise appropriate levels of self-care and to monitor own state, recognising when it is necessary to take active steps to maintain fitness to practice.
- Motivated towards personal and professional development with a strong CPD record.
- Well developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies relevant to working with families in an acute healthcare environment.
- Ability/skills in working through interpreters.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Experience delivering skilled psychological assessments, interventions, follow-up and data monitoring utilising at least 2 therapeutic models.
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups and across the full range of clinical severity.
- Experience of liaising with carers and families and external organisations that support these groups.
- Ability to show autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients and liaising with other professionals as and when necessary.
- Experience of working within an MDT and sharing psychological/psychotherapeutic knowledge & skill e.g. consultation, reflective practice, supervision groups.
- Experience designing and conducting research activities at a doctoral level including service related research and audits.
- Experience of supervising pre-qualified psychologists and/or professionals from other disciplines.
- Experience of working in a neonatal, perinatal, critical care or other acute hospital environment.
- Experience of working with trauma and bereavement
- Experience of teaching and training others, using a variety of complex multimedia material suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings
- Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts
- Experience of teaching and training health professionals in psychological concepts.
Education, Qualifications & Training
Essential criteria
- Doctoral level training in clinical/counselling/health psychology, including models of psychopathology, psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS.
- Registered with HCPC as a Practitioner Psychologist and evidence of continuing professional development as required by the HCPC.
- Eligible for Full Membership of the BPS Division of Clinical or Counselling Psychology.
- Further training relevant to working in acute medical settings
- Pre or post-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
Special Circumstances
Essential criteria
- Ideally will be able to travel between Stoke Mandeville and Wycombe Hospitals for Trust meetings
Employer certification / accreditation badges
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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 Clare Daniel
- Job title
- Chief Psychological Professions Officer
- Email address
- [email protected]
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