Job summary
- Main area
- Psychology
- Grade
- Band 8a
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Part time - 18.75 hours per week
- Job ref
- 287-RMED-47-26
- Employer
- Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Royal Liverpool University Hospital
- Town
- Liverpool
- Salary
- £55,690 - £62,682 per annum, pro rata
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 20/02/2026 23:59
Employer heading
Senior Practitioner Psychologist
Band 8a
Job overview
To be a senior member of the Liverpool Cancer Psychology Service, with a focus on direct therapeutic work and support for clinical nurse specialists.
Main duties of the job
1.To provide a high quality and highly specialised psychology service for
patients who are resident in Liverpool or under the care of LUHFT and are affected by cancer
2. To be a highly specialist resource on psychological care to the wider services and to coordinate and contribute to providing education, training and supervision activities to enhance psychological support and treatment across the services.
Working for our organisation
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust comprises Aintree University Hospital, Broadgreen Hospital & Royal Liverpool University Hospital.
We are part of NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group, formed on 1 Nov 2024 from the coming together of LUHFT and Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust. The Group was born from a shared aim to improve the care we provide our patients.
UHLG is one of the largest employers in the region, with over 16,800 colleagues dedicated to caring for our communities - from birth and beyond.
For the 630,000 people across Merseyside, we are their local NHS. We provide general and emergency hospital care, alongside highly specialised regional services for more than two million people in the North West.
Aintree University Hospital is the single receiving site for adult major trauma patients in Cheshire and Merseyside and hosts a number of regional services including an award-winning stroke facility. Broadgreen Hospital is home to elective surgical, diagnostic and treatment services, together with specialist patient rehabilitation. Liverpool Women’s Hospital specialises in the health of women and babies, delivering over 7,200 babies in the UK’s largest single site maternity hospital each year. The Royal Liverpool University Hospital is the largest hospital in the country to provide inpatients with 100% single bedrooms and focuses on complex planned care and specialist services.
For roles at Liverpool Women’s, visit their careers page.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
1. To provide highly developed specialist psychological assessments of
patients 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 patients, family members and others involved in the patient’s care.
2. To formulate plans for formal psychological treatment and/or management of patients based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of patients’ problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
3. To be responsible for implementing a range of highly specialist psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across clinical teams, and in synthesis, adjusting and refining of psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses
4. To work with the Professional Lead for Psychology in contributing to planning, developing and coordinating clinical psychology services for patients who are resident in Liverpool or under the care of LUHFT and are affected by cancer
Person specification
Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
- Advanced theoretical and practical knowledge of clinical health psychology, consistent with doctoral level professional training and further post qualification study, training and/or supervised experience.
- Highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies.
- Specialist clinical knowledge of clinical health psychology, consistent with previous experience in this setting
- Ability to plan, organise and provide teaching and training on relevant psychological topics, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
- Knowledge of relevant legislation and DoH policy and implementation guidelines, and of the implications of such documentation for clinical practice and professional management in relation to health care in general and cancer services in particular.
- Evidence of continuing professional development consistent with expected standards of the British Psychological Society and relevant subdivisions (e.g. Division of Clinical Psychology).
- Familiarity with the ethical and professional standards expected of Clinical Psychologists as laid down in the collated BPS ‘Code of Ethics and Conduct’ (2009).
- Awareness and thorough understanding of the political, social and economic policy framework within which health and mental health services are delivered and an ability to articulate and interpret clearly the role of the professions of clinical, health and counselling psychology within this context.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of research in psycho-oncology.
- Post-qualification experience of research in physical health setting.
- Publication in peer-reviewed clinical or service-related journals.
- Experience of working in a clinical research environment
- Specialist knowledge of psycho-oncology
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Satisfactory completion of postgraduate doctoral level training in Clinical, Counselling or Health Psychology (or its equivalent for those trained before1996) as accredited by the BPS.
- Eligibility for entry onto the British Psychological Society Register of Chartered Psychologists.
- Registered with HCPC as a Practitioner Psychologist
Desirable criteria
- Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.
- Specialist training or demonstrable expertise in one or more areas of research methodology.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Post-qualification experience of working as a practitioner psychologist.
- Experience of working as a qualified psychologist in a physical health setting.
- Working with a wide variety of client groups, across the adult life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across a range of care settings including outpatient and in-patient settings.
- Maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems.
- Exercising full clinical responsibility for clients’ psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care co-ordinator and also within the context of a multi-disciplinary care plan
- Teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision.
- Representing the profession in local policy or planning forums
Desirable criteria
- Experience in cancer services.
- Experience in service development and/or innovation.
- Membership of national professional or interprofessional groups
- Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
- Experience of research in physical health settings.
Skills
Essential criteria
- Skills in the use of highly complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management commensurate with doctoral level training, including specialist clinical interviewing, behavioural observation, complex psychometric testing and specialist neuropsychological testing.
- Highly developed interpersonal and communication skills (written and verbal) including the ability empathically, sensitively and effectively to communicate clinical and condition-related information to patients, their families, carers and professional colleagues (within and outside the NHS) that is extremely complicated, technical or sensitive and potentially distressing to the recipient or that is extremely contentious or challenging.
- When communicating with patients, carers and colleagues, has the high level interpersonal skills necessary to obtain and convey highly complex, sensitive or contentious information in emotionally charged and extremely emotive settings, in a manner that addresses and overcomes psychological resistance, hostility, antagonism, and problems of motivation and engagement, as well as barriers to understanding arising from cognitive, cultural or linguistic factors
- Ability to show respect for patients and practitioners, and to build and sustain effective working relationships.
- A commitment to the integration of research and clinical services including the evaluation of services for both multi-professional and uni-professional audit, and a wish to continue to develop expertise in the service area.
- Resourcefulness and ability to work independently at a high level and as a member of a team and to deliver team and organisational objectives.
- Adaptable and able to work flexibly when required (particularly in the light of changing service priorities).
- Capacity for tolerating frustration, change and high levels of demand with an ability to work effectively under pressure.
- Demonstrable leadership in relation to psychology and other professions.
- High-level negotiation skills
- Computing skills: data processing, wordprocessing, literature-searching consistent with doctoral training and the need for dataanalysis to support audit and research.
- Excellent verbal and written communication
Desirable criteria
- Evidence of management skills
Other
Essential criteria
- Willingness to travel between sites as required.
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
- Jane Hutton
- Job title
- Consultant Clinical Psychologist
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07971 176603
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