Job summary
- Main area
- Clinical Psychology
- Grade
- Band 8b
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Part time - 22.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 249-7743562
- Employer
- Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- The Great Western Hospital
- Town
- Swindon
- Salary
- £76,965 - £88,682 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 15/02/2026 23:59
- Interview date
- 26/02/2026
Employer heading
Principal Paediatric Clinical Counselling Psychologist Diabetes Cancer
Band 8b
Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is a unique organisation, serving as the sole integrated provider in the Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon, and Wiltshire system. Our scope extends beyond boundaries as we oversee adult community services in Swindon and provide acute care from the Great Western Hospital.
Our 5,500 staff have 1.2m patient contacts a year, with 13,000 operations carried out in our Theatres, around 4,000 babies born, and our emergency attendances are now well over 100,000 per year. Those numbers only tell part of our story about what an exciting time it is to join Great Western Hospitals.
We are cultivating a culture that fosters our ambitions, prioritising equality, diversion, inclusion, wellbeing, and leadership. We aim to create an environment where every member of our team can truly thrive.
The Trust is a Disability Confident Employer; all applicants who have a disability can opt to be considered under the guaranteed interview scheme, which means that, providing they meet the minimum essential criteria for the post, they will be offered an interview. We are also proudly accredited as a Veteran Aware organisation and have signed The Armed Forces Covenant.
If we receive a high volume of applications, we may close adverts prior to the published closing date. Therefore, we advise you to complete and submit your application as soon as possible.
Job overview
We are looking to welcome an enthusiastic, compassionate and experienced Principal Clinical/Counselling Paediatric Psychologist, who can play a
significant part in enhancing and developing the psychological care of children and young people (CYP) with diabetes (0.4 WTE) and cancer (0.2 WTE) across our locality. You will have previous experience of leadership and working in paediatric physical healthcare settings, and will be looking to apply and expand your knowledge of clinical/counselling psychology in this area further.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will be the clinical lead for the Great Western Hospital Paediatric Diabetes and Oncology Psychology Service. This will require working autonomously within professional, trust and departmental guidelines, and exercising responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the paediatric diabetes and oncology psychology service. They will be responsible for developing, leading, managing and providing an entirely autonomous and systematic specialist psychology service to patients of the paediatric diabetes and cancer care team, and their families.
The post holder will be responsible for enhancing the psychological care provided by the paediatric diabetes and oncology care team in a variety of ways, including consultancy and training with the two teams. They will carry an appropriate clinical caseload of patients with a wide variety of difficulties and presentations, as well as contributing to appropriate multidisciplinary interventions and pathways within the service. As a Principal Clinical Psychologist, the post holder will be accountable for his/her own professional actions and will also supervise trainee psychologists working across the relevant settings.
In collaboration with the Lead for Clinical Health Psychology and the Consultant Clinical Psychologist in Adult Diabetes, the post holder will carry out and contribute to audit, policy and service development, and research activities and/or programmes as appropriate and required.
Working for our organisation
Both the paediatric diabetes and oncology service are well-established at GWH and value psychology.
The post holder will also be joining an established team of psychological professionals working within a range of areas at GWH, including Adult Diabetes, Cancer Services, Pain Management, Critical Care, Weight Management and Occupational Health & Wellbeing Services.
The psychology team meet regularly for teams meetings, departmental updates, CPD and Reflective Practice sessions. While team members are encouraged to routinely work alongside their MDT colleagues within individual services, there is also a shared psychology office with opportunities for linking in with psychology colleagues.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
1. To be responsible for holding and managing a clinical caseload and to exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the planning and prioritising of own workload and the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients, within the bounds of the service operational policy.
2. To formulate and implement plans for evidence based psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s psychological distress, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s difficulties.
3. To be responsible for implementing a range of complex 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.
4. To evaluate and make complex 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 provide consultation, mentorship, supervision and advice about psychological issues relating to paediatric diabetes and cancer at a high level of professional expertise to other members of the team/service and other professionals working with the service users, across a range of agencies/settings as appropriate.
6. To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to benefit all children and young people seen within the two services.
7. To undertake highly complex risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management, including assessments of individuals who are frequently aggressive.
8. To provide specialist psychological advice, consultation, training and clinical supervision to other professionals in order to develop a psychological understanding on the basis of which to plan, implement and evaluate evidence-based interventions for clients with complex needs.
9. To be responsible for the professional supervision and development of trainee clinical psychologists in the service.
10. To assess the need for further training and access CPD when necessary.
11. To lead on local and national initiatives relevant to psychology.
12. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care to the MDTs and other relevant organisations.
13. To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of
practice, through active participation in internal and external continuing professional development training and development programmes, in consultation with management.
14. To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner.
15. Take part in regular professional and managerial supervision and appraisal and maintain an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.
16. To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society, the HCPC and Trust policies and procedures.
17. To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group and mental health.
18. To participate fully in multidisciplinary team meeting and activities as appropriate.
19. To attend case conferences, reviews and other meetings as appropriate.
20. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams’ operational policies and services, through the development of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
21. To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychology and/or organisational matters need addressing.
22. To work with team/service lead on service policy development and review.
23. To make informed comment on local and divisional policy affecting service development.
24. To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of their psychological practice within the service.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology (or equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including psychometric assessment, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology models.
- Post qualification specialist therapy/assessment training relevant to children and young people.
Desirable criteria
- Post qualification training in supervision.
- Post qualification training or proven equivalent experience in leadership or management.
Experience and knowledge
Essential criteria
- Experience of using evidence-based therapy with children and adolescents, including group work.
- Experience of leadership within psychological settings.
- Experience of and skills within service quality monitoring i.e. clinical, audit, evaluative research etc.
Desirable criteria
- Post qualification experience of working within the fields of both paediatric diabetes and paediatric oncology.
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
- Anna Lagerdahl
- Job title
- Chief Psychological Professions Officer
- Email address
- [email protected]
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