Job summary
- Main area
- Mental Health
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8a
- Contract
- Fixed term: 12 months (One year maternity cover)
- Hours
- Part time - 18.75 hours per week
- Job ref
- 354-AB-20952-B
- Employer
- Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Community Mental Health Centre
- Town
- Brighton
- Salary
- £55,690 - £62,682 pro rata
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 29/10/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Senior Practitioner Psychologist
NHS AfC: Band 8a
Come and join us
We’re looking for people who share our values of compassion, accountability and optimism to help us provide high quality care for the patients, carers, families and communities we serve. We specialise in NHS mental health and learning disability services and we’re proud to make a difference every day.
At SPFT we put people first. We’ll do everything possible to help you feel respected, valued and included. You’ll have opportunities to learn, grow and gain new experiences to support your career, with access to lifelong learning and professional development.
We actively promote flexible working and understand how important work life balance is, especially in healthcare. Whether it’s part time hours, hybrid working or flexible start and finish times, we’ll explore what works for you and the role.
We recognise that AI is becoming part of daily life and you may choose to use it to help prepare your application. We welcome innovation but ask that anything you submit reflects your own abilities, experience and voice. AI can support how you describe your skills and experience, but it should never replace your own words as we want to get to know you.
We’re shaping a workplace where ideas are encouraged, technology supports you and everyone has a voice in how we improve. If that sounds like the kind of organisation you want to be part of, we’d love to hear from you.
Job overview
Applications are invited from Practitioner Psychologists registered with the HCPC for a one-year secondment to cover maternity leave (starting in October 2025), based at the East Brighton Community Mental Health Centre, Brighton General Hospital.
As the psychologist within the Mental Health Homeless Team (MHHT), you can make your own powerful contribution by helping us support some of the most vulnerable, disadvantaged and marginalised people in society. Our service works with rough sleepers and insecurely housed individuals across Brighton and Hove, who have a severe and enduring mental illness and who may have additional substance misuse problems.
The MHHT is an exciting community mental health service that collaborates with colleagues from the housing department, health workers and VCS organisations.
You will join a friendly, highly-skilled and enthusiastic multi-disciplinary team of
mental health nurses, social workers, an STR worker and a consultant psychiatrist.
We invite applications from people who are already in an 8a post and who are motivated to work with this population, as well as suitable applicants who are currently in a Band 7 role for whom this could be an opportunity to gain experience in an 8a role.
Main duties of the job
As a Senior Practitioner psychologist, you will;
- Apply skills and expertise in psychological assessments.
- Hold a caseload of clients.
- Offer individual and group psychological interventions to clients and their families/carers.
- Collaboratively develop formulations and care plans.
- Provide case consultations and formulation sessions to other agency partners in the community.
- Deliver reflective practice sessions for staff (to support staff wellbeing).
- Contribute a psychological perspective and advice in MDT meetings where appropriate and contribute to complex clinical decision making about clients.
- Provide teaching, training and supervision, to assistant and trainee psychologists.
Working for our organisation
Sussex Partnership provides mental health care for all age groups across Sussex.
We encourage flexible working. We know that a positive work/ life balance brings about huge health-related benefits, which has a positive impact on the care we provide. Please speak to us about flexible working, for example, home-working, part time hours, flexible start/ finish times or anything else. If it works for you and works for the role, we'll do our best to make it happen.
We’d love you to join our Trust, rated ‘good’ overall and ‘outstanding’ for caring by the CQC. Our staff agree, in our recent staff survey 82% told us that they recognise that care for patients is our top priority.
Other key survey results:
- 70% highlighting flexible working as a key point for satisfaction at work
- 79% reporting feeling able to make suggestions to improve the work in their team
- 77% identifying opportunities to show initiative in their roles
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please see the attached Job Description document for full details of the role and responsibilities.
For further information regarding the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust please visit our website www.sussexpartnership.nhs.uk
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Post-graduate doctoral level training in applied psychology [or its equivalent for those trained before 1996 or outside the UK*] as approved by the HCPC, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology
- *For forensic psychologists working in forensic settings: Masters degree (with the award of the British Psychological Society qualification in forensic psychology or equivalent).
- Professionally registered as a Practitioner Psychologist with the Health Professions Council (HCPC)
Knowledge/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.
- Demonstrate specialist experience gained postqualification of working as an applied psychologist with evidence of having received a substantial amount of clinical supervision (normally in the region of approximately 50 hours).
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
- 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, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
- Experience of the application of applied psychology in different cultural contexts and experience of working within a multicultural framework
- Experience of representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care.
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
- Emily Cooper
- Job title
- Clinical Lead
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07471 034102
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