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Job summary

Main area
Psychology
Grade
NHS AfC: Band 7
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
455-NLFT-8264361
Employer
North London NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Holly Oak, Edgware Community Hospital
Town
Barent
Salary
£55,524 - £62,652 Per annum including HCAS
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
06/10/2026 08:00

Employer heading

North London NHS Foundation Trust logo

Clinical Psychologist for CAMHS Single Point of Access (SPOA)

NHS AfC: Band 7

Thank you for your interest in North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT).

As of 1 April 2026, NLFT has formally merged with Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust—marking the start of an exciting new chapter. This is a unique opportunity to join a forward-thinking organisation at a time of transformation, where we are strengthening access to mental health services, responding more effectively to complex and specialist needs, and advancing our work in education, research and innovation.

By bringing together our combined expertise, we are building a stronger, more collaborative Trust—one that delivers consistent, high-quality care and improved outcomes for the diverse communities we serve.

At the heart of our approach is The North London Way. We are committed to:

  • Working collaboratively at every level, guided by our shared values
  • Shaping a positive, inclusive culture where staff and service users thrive
  • Empowering our teams with the skills, tools and autonomy to drive meaningful change
  • Delivering excellence and continuously improving the quality of care we provide
  • Embedding research, innovation and technology across our services
  • Taking a trauma-informed approach in everything we do

We are proud to be an inclusive employer that values diversity. We actively welcome applicants from all backgrounds, particularly from our local communities, and are committed to creating opportunities for everyone—including apprentices, veterans and care leavers.

The North London Way to deliver: Better Mental Health, Better Lives, Better Communities.

Our trust website is:  https://www.northlondonmentalhealth.nhs.uk/ 

As a values‑driven Trust, we recruit through our values. Our selection processes focus on behaviours, attitudes, and examples that reflect our organisational values and commitment to compassionate, high‑quality care.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a set of technology that can perform various tasks that typically required human intelligence. Your application is your opportunity to demonstrate to us how you meet the requirements of the role.

We recognise that AI tools can support accessibility, equity and confidence for applicants. However, it’s important that examples and responses genuinely reflect your own experience and abilities, as these will be explored further during the selection process. AI must not be used to provide misleading or false information during any stage of the application journey.

Further guidance can be found in the NLPSS Applicant Toolkit  https://royalfree.pagetiger.com/cuuomnr/1.

North London NHS Foundation Trust is committed to ensuring that its recruitment processes are carried out with integrity, transparency, and fairness for all applicants. To help maintain these standards, we ask candidates to provide accurate and truthful information throughout the recruitment process.

If incorrect or misleading information is identified, this may affect the progression of an application, any employment offer, or continued employment. As part of our due diligence, the company may verify the information provided by applicants and take appropriate action where necessary.

We do not charge applicants any fees at any stage of the recruitment process, including applications, interviews, sponsorship arrangements, pre-employment checks, or employment offers. All vacancies are advertised through TRAC/NHS Jobs and candidates are assessed solely on their skills, qualifications, experience, and suitability for the role. If you are asked to make a payment in connection with an NHS job opportunity, please treat this as suspicious and contact the organisation directly using the details published on our official career's website.

Applicants can refer to the Fraud Act 2006 for further information: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/contents

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join NLFT CAMHS Single Point of Access (SPOA) as a Clinical Psychologist. This role is suitable for someone who is passionate about providing high quality mental health care to support children and young people and their families.

 

The purpose of the Single Point of Access (SPOA) is to assess children and young people being referred in to the CAMHS Division to ascertain the most appropriate service to meet their needs. The post requires significant clinical and organisational skills. You will adhere to the goals of ‘No wrong Front Door’ and support the operations of the Access Team who seek to identify the right service for a young person at the right time. We have developed a system of triage to help identify needs, assess risk and if appropriate offer initial assessment and brief intervention, using the iThrive model. As SPOA work closely with the other CAMHS teams, it is likely that there will be opportunities for work across teams in line with the post holder’s interests or skills.

 

 

Main duties of the job

·       Coordinate the day to day running of the SPOA team, including screening new referrals, allocating these to the access clinicians. 

·       Complete telephone triages/screening for young people who are referred to our service, making contact with families, allied professionals, the young person themselves.

·       Complete over the telephone risk assessment, management plans. 

 ·       To provide (specialist) psychological assessments to children who are referred to the using a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations, semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the child or young person’s care. 

·       To provide brief interventions for young people referred to SPOA or other CAMHS teams

·       Help to manage and maintain clear waiting lists for the clinical teams that sit within the CAMHS Division.

 

·       To provide advice and on clients’ psychological care.

·       To work within Trust and professional guidelines, to a clear CAMHS job plan.

 

·       To support and promote the use of measures to evolve clinical practice and enhance user experience within supervision, team meetings and other forums.

 

·       To utilise research skills for practice evaluation and service development, as required by the service and set out in the job plan.

·       To be involved in co-production, to support the development of services.

 

 

 

Working for our organisation

North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT) is committed to improving mental health care across North London to deliver excellent services to our local people.

Our Five-Year Strategy:  

 

  1. We will provide consistently high-quality care closer to home.

  2. With our partners in North London and each borough we will ensure equity of outcome for all

  3. We will offer great places to work, providing staff with supportive environment to deliver outstanding care.

  4. We will be more effective as an organisation by pioneering research, quality improvement and technology. 

In order to meet the needs of the Trust you may be required from time to time to work at different locations to your normal place of work. This may mean that you are required to work at any location that fall under Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey or Islington. The Trust reserves the right to require staff to work at such other places or locations as it considers reasonable and necessary on a temporary or permanent basis.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Contribute to the day to day running of the SPOA team, including screening new referrals and allocating these to the access clinicians. Manage and maintain clear waiting lists for the clinical teams that sit within the CAMHS SPOA.Manage and maintain a clear duty Rota for the SPOA. 

 

 

·       Complete telephone triages/screening for young people who are referred to our service, making contact with families, professionals involved in their care, and the young person themselves.

 

·       Complete over the telephone risk assessment and management plans.

 

·       To provide some specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, 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.

 

·       To support with the planning of evidence-based psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems, based on formulation.

 

·       Where appropriate, to implement a range of brief psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses. 

 

·       Engage in risk assessment and management as required for new referrals and those waiting for treatment, and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

·       To attend multi agency meetings to support the referral and assessment of children and young people to specialist CAMHS.

·        

 

 

·       Work alongside admin colleagues to ensure a smooth and timely response/screening for all new referrals into the CAMHS Division.

 

·       Ensure the safe delivery of Key KPI’s and access to treatment standards.

 

·       Comply with the service requirements for the completion of routine outcome measures.

 

 

To be noted:

·         This is not an exhaustive list of duties and responsibilities, and the postholder may be required to undertake other duties which fall within the grade of the job, in discussion with the manager.

 

 

 

 

 

Person specification

Education & Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • Professional qualification as a Clinical Psychologist Professional registration with relevant professional body i.e. HCPC.
Desirable criteria
  • Qualification in core therapy training relevant to children and families, such as CBT, DBT, systemic therapy

EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE

Essential criteria
  • Experience of working with children/young people with mental health difficulties
  • Experience of assessing mental health need and risk, and creating risk management or intervention plans with children and adolescents.
  • Experience in liaison and multi-agency working.
  • Experience of working using evidence based models of intervention for children and young people.
Desirable criteria
  • Experience of direct, time-limited clinical work within a CAMHS type setting.
  • Experience in the use of routine outcome measures in clinical practice.
  • Experience of contributing to intake-coordination and waiting list management.
  • Experience of developing service user participation
  • Knowledge of statutory and voluntary sector services and the increasing demands facing mental health providers

Skills and Abilities

Essential criteria
  • Ability to make complex autonomous judgements based on theoretical, technical and clinical knowledge and experience
  • Ability to communicate effectively in highly emotive situations: - overcoming barriers to understanding and analysing complex and conflicting opinion/emotions
  • Experience in the autonomous management of personal work patterns and caseload. This includes experience in scheduling and maintaining a pattern of clinical and non-clinical work.
  • Good report writing, time management, administrative and IT skills.
Desirable criteria
  • Research, audit, and service development skills
  • Supervision of junior staff
  • Skills in providing consultation to other professional groups

PERSONAL QUALITIES

Essential criteria
  • Self-motivated. Flexible in approach and outlook. Ability to work as part of a team.
  • Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines.
  • Ability to contain anxiety in others.
  • Adaptable
  • Good interpersonal skills
  • Reliable
  • Trustworthy
  • Physical effort – capacity to sit in constrained position for extended periods.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

NHS Pastoral Care Quality AwardVeteran AwareApprenticeships logoNo smoking policyPositive about disabled peopleJob share policyAge positiveImproving working livesCare quality commission - GoodArmed Forces Covenant Gold AwardMindful employer.  Being positive about mental health.Disability confident employerCare Leaver CovenantStonewall equality policy. Equality and justice for lesbians, gay men, bisexual and trans people.Step into healthAccredited Living Wage Employer

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

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Georgia Macken
Job title
CYP Single Point of Access Operations Manager
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
0208 702 3111
Additional information

Lolita Riley

Barnet SPOA Team Manager 

[email protected] or 0208 207 3111

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