Job summary
- Main area
- Psychology
- Grade
- Band 4
- Contract
- 12 months (fixed term)
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 350-CC7647540
- Employer
- Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Curzon Road
- Town
- Southport
- Salary
- £27,485 - £30,162 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 17/12/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Assistant Psychologist
Band 4
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Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnically diverse, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.
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Job overview
Applications are invited from motivated and enthusiastic Psychology graduates with relevant experience to join a dynamic and successful department of Clinical Health Psychology (Southport).
You will be willing to learn and become part of an energetic team of Psychologists who work with adults and teams to maximise wellbeing in the face of illness and disability.
You will be also be working as part of the Community Pain Service (Ainsdale) and providing input into the Paediatric Diabetes Team (Ormskirk).
You will be familiar with Microsoft Office and have a working knowledge of Solution Focused Therapy, and an interest in working closely with Expert Patients.
Main duties of the job
We have close links with the three regional Doctorate courses and the service and staff team have been recognised locally and nationally with a number of awards.
You will receive a range of experiences, both clinical and research, and excellent support and supervision.
An Enhanced DBS will be required. For further information or an informal discussion about the post please contact Dr Jo Iddon 01704 387252
Working for our organisation
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Duties and responsibilities:
To support Qualified Psychologists by undertaking psychological assessments of clients applying psychologically based psychometric 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 assist in the formulation and delivery of interventions involving the psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s problems, under the supervision of a qualified practitioner psychologist, in both community and in-patient/residential settings as appropriate to the specialty work.
Having received instruction through supervision, to provide one-to-one consultations with service users, working autonomously within the limits of this instruction and within personal competence.
To use a degree of initiative and work independently with service users on planned work, and to exercise judgement based on good practice (NICE) and local operating procedures.
To work with potentially distressing material in relation to service users’ personal histories and presentation, including risk to self and others.
Preparing agreed assessment reports accurately in the accepted format.
Where required, to assist in the coordination and running of therapeutic groups.
Where required, to work with other staff to assess inpatients, day patients or residents and review their care in preparation for multi-disciplinary reviews.
In common with all professional psychologists, to receive regular clinical supervision in accordance with professional practice guidelines.
To develop skills and competencies that assist in the delivery of current duties through engagement with CPD opportunities and self-guided learning
To contribute to the training and support of other staff.
To assist in the design and implementation of service development projects
within the service as required.
To attend MDT meetings to be both appraised of clinical decision making and participate in clinical and service development discussions.
To assist in the design and implementation of audit and research projects.
To undertake data collection, analysis, the production of reports and summaries, using IT and statistical programmes
To undertake searches of evidence-based literature and research to assist qualified professional psychologists in evidence based practice in individual work and work with other professionals.
To contribute to the development and maintenance of high professional standards of practice, through active participation in training and development programmes, in consultation with the supervisor.
To maintain clinical record keeping and report writing in accordance with professional codes of practice and Trust policies and procedures. Particularly to ensure timely electronic patient record updating.
To prepare test materials and visual aids as required.
To undertake specific administrative duties as required.
RESEARCH AND AUDIT
Undertake and participate in appropriate audit, quality assurance programmes and research as directed.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- A second-class honours degree or higher in psychology or psychology as a main subject
- Entitlement to graduate membership of the British Psychological Society
Desirable criteria
- Further post graduate training in relevant areas of professional psychology, mental health practice and/or research design and analysis
- A desire to explore a career in Professional Psychology
Knowledge/Experience
Essential criteria
- Previous experience of work with people with mental health problems and/or other disabilities
- Experience of teaching and training in the application of psychological principles to mental health problems
- Experience of research evaluation and audit of the application of psychological principles to mental health problems
- High level communication skills (written and verbal) including an ability to communicate and work in settings in which the atmosphere may be highly emotive
- Experience using computers for databases or data-analysis
- Experience of report writing
- Demonstrated high level ability to communicate sensitive information to service users, carers and colleagues in a way that facilitates engagement
- An understanding of the needs and difficulties of people with mental health problems or other disabilities
- A demonstrated ability to apply existing psychological knowledge to a mental health context
- An understanding of psychological principles applied to health care
- Undertaken further, relevant post-graduate study
Desirable criteria
- Experience of Clinical Health Psychology settings
- Experience/knowledge of Solution-Focused approaches
- Experience of working with 'expert patients'
Values
Essential criteria
- Continuous Improvement
- Accountability
- Respectfulness
- Enthusiasm
- Support
- High professional standards
- Responsive to service users
- Engaging leadership style
- Strong customer service belief
- Transparency and honesty
- Discreet
- Change oriented
Skills
Essential criteria
- Expertise in managing people, managing conflict, and balancing demand for resources with availability and prioritisation of same
- Ability to analyse and implement financial reports and data
- Experience of presenting complex reports/presentation to commissioners/ partners and the Trust
- Experience of taking decisions relating to the risk or safety of individuals and carrying professional responsibility for those decisions within a safeguarding and risk framework
- Clear experience of interacting effectively with staff from all disciplines
- An interest in working with people with mental health problems or other disabilities
- Clear experience of interacting with people with mental health problems
- Ability to work with a high level of autonomy within the boundaries of the assistant role
- Ability to accept and use supervision appropriately and effectively
Desirable criteria
- Evidence of presentation skills
- Evidence of managing change at a senior level
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
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 Jo Iddon
- Job title
- Principal Clinical Psychologist
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 01704387252
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