Job summary
- Main area
- Cognition and Mental Health in Ageing
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8a
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- 30 hours per week (Part time 0.6 - 0.8 WTE (0.6 WTE inpatient + 0.2 WTE community))
- Job ref
- 294-MHCA-6276071-JB
- Employer
- South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Springfield University Hospital
- Town
- London
- Salary
- £58,698 - £65,095 pro rata per annum inclusive of inner London HCAS
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 21/05/2024 23:59
Employer heading
Principal Clinical / Counselling Psychologist
NHS AfC: Band 8a
South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We provide a full range of local mental health services to the Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth London boroughs, as well as specialist forensic mental health services, including specialised services such as national deaf adults and CAMHS inpatients and OCD.
We are committed to providing high quality integrated health and social care for local people with mental health problems in South West London and more specialist mental health services for people throughout the UK. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’ however we aim to be ‘outstanding’.
Our Values
We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values; being consistent, compassionate, collaborative, respectful and open is at the heart of everything we do. Our mission is "making life better together".
When you join us, you’ll be part of something special – an innovative and rapidly growing organisation that is helping to redefine the Mental Health, education and social care landscape in the UK.
As a Trust, we are happy to talk flexible working.
Job overview
We are seeking a motivated and enthusiastic 8a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist to work 0.6 within the Older People’s Inpatient Services (0.6 WTE) and Older People’s Community Team (0.2 WTE). The inpatient role involves working collaboratively with the two inpatient teams to provide psychological assessment and formulation of inpatients with mental health difficulties and/or dementia, facilitating complex case discussions, supporting the implementation of effective psychosocial interventions by staff teams, as well as conducting 1:1 therapeutic work with older people with mental health difficulties. The community role involves both 1:1 therapeutic work and neuropsychological assessment, joining another psychologist who is already established in the team. We would consider applicants wishing to only work the 0.6 inpatient role.
You will be well supported within the psychology team working with older people across South West London & St Georges, where continuing professional development and staff support are highly valued. We have
specialist pathway leads in Therapies, Neuropsychological Assessment, and Care Home Liaison / BPSD and you will receive regular individual supervision and support from senior Psychologists within the service. The service has strong links with the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Training Program at the University of Surrey, where we regularly provide placements and contribute to teaching on the program.
Main duties of the job
Psychology is highly valued within the Older People’s inpatient and community services, both in terms of complex client work, neuropsychological assessment of dementia, and supporting teams in formulating care, delivering training, and leading service development. The current role will involve working across the two older adult inpatient wards located in Springfield and Tolworth Hospitals (who take patients from all five Trust community teams), and the Sutton Older People’s Community Mental Health Team.
As Principal Clinical Psychologist you will conduct psychological assessments, formulation, therapeutic intervention, neuropsychological assessment and consultation, for clients with mental health problems and/or dementia. You will work as part of an MDT including providing consultation, complex case discussions, and supporting with staff training. You will also supervise and support the psychological assessment and therapy provided by trainee clinical psychologists and other clinical members of the team who provide psychologically based care and treatment.
This post is based one day per week in the Older People’s inpatient ward at Springfield Hospital, one day per week in the Older People’s inpatient ward at Tolworth Hospital, one day per week in Sutton Older People’s Community Team, and one day flexibly. We would consider applicants wishing to only work the inpatient part of this role (0.6 WTE).
Working for our organisation
We are Proud to Belong at South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust.
We have expert services, a rich history and a clear commitment to providing the best quality care for those with mental ill-health. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’ - we aspire to be ‘outstanding’.
This is a great time to join us. We are transforming the way we care for our communities to support our mission of Making Life Better Together. We have built two brand new mental health facilities at Springfield University Hospital, which are amongst the best in the world. More developments are planned across our sites and services.
We are inclusive and diverse and strive to be actively anti racist. We want to attract people from all backgrounds and experiences to enrich the work we do together. We are proud to co-produce and involve our local communities in all that we do.
We offer flexible working, career development and a variety of benefits to enable a positive, welcoming environment in which our people and their careers can thrive.
Come and join our inclusive teams and help our patients on their recovery journey.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to their clinical team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological 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.
2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
3. To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
4. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
6. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
7. To ensure that all members of the treating team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.
8. 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.
9. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.
10. To provide expertise, advice and support to all members of the treatment team to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care and to support other team Applied Psychologists in the service area, in their contribution (direct and indirect) to providing a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to all clients of the service in which they work.
Person specification
Training and Qualifications
Essential criteria
- 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 – or alternative training outside of the UK that is recognised by the Health & Care Professions Council leading to registration in the UK as a Clinical or Counselling Psychologist.
- Registration with the HCPC under the appropriate domain specific title
- Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the HCPC
Desirable criteria
- Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology
- Formal training in supervision of other psychologists
- Further post graduate training in a specific type of psychological therapy, BABCP accredited CBT practitioner or eligibility for membership of the BABCP as a CBT practitioner
- Qualification in Clinical Neuropsychology (QICN)
Experience
Essential criteria
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client 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
- Experience of assessing and treating older people with mental health difficulties and/or dementia across a variety of care settings
- Experience of working in Inpatient services
- Experience of delivering NICE adherent psychological interventions especially CBT for psychological problems
- Demonstrate further specialist training/experience through having received a minimum of 50 hours clinical supervision of working as a specialist clinical psychologist over a minimum of 18 months, or an alternative agreed by the Trust Head of Psychology and Psychotherapies
Desirable criteria
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
- Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
- Experience of working with behavioural and psychological symptoms in dementia.
- Experience of representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care
Knowledge and Skills
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 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 in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups
- Ability to demonstrate excellence in NICE adherent psychological interventions especially CBT for psychological problems.
- Doctoral level knowledge of neuropsychological assessment.
- 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.
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
- Knowledge of assessment and interventions for people with behavioural and psychological symptoms in dementia.
- Formal training in supervision of other psychologists.
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 Beth Sanford
- Job title
- Consultant Psychologist & Lead for P & P
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 020 8614 5300
- Additional information
Adeshina Abdulsalam, Clinical Manager for CMHA (07875726162, [email protected]
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