Highly Specialist Practitioner Psychologist in cancer surgery

Job responsibilities

Clinical

1. The postholder will identify, address, and respond to psychological difficulties that interfere with a persons ability to participate in surgical interventions.

2. The service will be modelled on preventative psychology strategies embedded within the treatment pathway to enhance coping through offering a range of intervention formats that are complimentary

• accessible and de-stigmatising psychological care;
• brief screens/assessments in MDT clinics
• 1:1 psychological intervention
• integrated inpatient care

3. To involve patient/significant others in developing the service.

4. You will work with the person with cancer as well as significant others, including staff when indicated and appropriate.

5. Develop a rapid, responsive and flexible service which can fit around surgical treatment.

6. Assessment and intervention will be offered in multiple formats including virtual and telephone reviews, and in both inpatient and outpatient settings.

7. Supporting multi-disciplinary staff in working psychologically (teaching, consultation, staff support).

8. Show the value psychological approach adds to patient experience and outcomes.

9. Develop a trauma informed approach to pre and post cancer surgery, considering the voice of those who experience marginalisation and discrimination, and important contextual factors like gender, poverty and race and how these intersect with health and illness.

10. Work alongside the inpatient POST psychologist to create joint initiatives

11. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options considering both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.

12. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of patients whose problems are managed by creative and flexible psychologically based care plans.

13. Willingness and openness to be with uncertainty and issues related to death and dying, as well as palliative concerns.

14. To provide specialist psychological advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

15. To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.

16. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

17. To communicate in a respectful, considered, timely, and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care.

Teaching, training, and supervision

1. To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior applied psychologist in accordance with professional regulatory guidance.

2. To gain any additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to applied psychology and/or the service (as agreed with the professional psychology manager).

3. To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide reflective practice or supervision to other members of the multidisciplinary team as appropriate.

4. To provide professional and clinical supervision of qualified and trainee psychologists.

5. To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of psychological and/or psychotherapy trainees

6. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.

7. To disseminate key service findings: present and showcase at conferences, in publications and in other relevant ways

Management, recruitment, policy and service development

1. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams operational policies and services.

2. To manage the workloads of trainee and qualified psychologists, within the framework of the team/services policies and procedures and be responsible for performance management, appraisal and recruitment.

3. To be involved, as appropriate, in the short listing and interviewing of trainee and qualified clinicians where appropriate.

4. To contribute to the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and developing the surgical service delivery.

Research, audit and service evaluation

1. To ensure audit and service evaluation is undertaken including a focus on patient experience and outcomes

5. To initiate, design and recruit to psychological research studies within the context of the team and assist with writing up.

6. To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through publications in peer reviewed journals and oral presentations internally and at national and international conferences.

7. Focus on evaluating trauma informed approaches to cancer surgery, with a focus on health inequalities and protected characteristics.

General

1. To have established an area of specialist clinical or research skills relevant to work within the adult cancer setting through personal development plans agreed with the post-holders manager.

2. To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the post holders professional and service managers.

3. To have developed skills in clinical supervision, in selection and recruitment, and in other areas of service development appropriate to the post, through attending relevant courses and through collaboration with more senior colleagues.

4. To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive practitioner, taking part in regular professional and clinical supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of applied psychology and related disciplines.

5. 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 Health Care Professions Council, British Psychological Society, and Trust policies and procedures.

5. 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.

Training and Qualifications

Essential

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent) Registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a Practitioner Psychologist

Desirable

• Specialist training in an area of psychological therapy beyond core training

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working in cancer and palliative care/or physical health care setting
• Substantial experience of working at the highly specialist level with clients presenting with a range of psychological needs of a complex nature.
• Experience of highly specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and inpatient settings.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups across the whole life course and showing a range of presenting problems
• The ability to maintain a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, and behaviours that may appear threatening or unsafe
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for client's psychological care, using formulation and intervention in a thoughtful and timely way, and liaising with the wider medical teams when necessary.
• Experience of providing teaching, training, consultation and/or supervision to other professionals within a physical or mental health context.
• Experience of managing a complex and busy caseload and responding to urgent requests for support/help from colleagues.
• Experience of representing psychological therapy within an MDT, showing respect for different approaches and a desire to work to collaboratively and enhance team cohesion and support.

Desirable

• Working with anticipatory grief, mourning and loss in a physical health context of care.
• Experience of service development and integrated working within an MDT.
• Experience working with medical teams
• Experience working on a hospital ward
• Worked on patient inclusion initiatives

Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Knowledge and skills of how power may be exercised in discriminatory ways within healthcare, and to show skill in addressing acts of discrimination at the level of the individual and organisation.
• Highly specialist knowledge of the literature and psychological problems associated with physical health conditions and/or mental health difficulties
• 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 in a non-jargonistic way, 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.
• Skills and knowledge in managing complex safeguarding issues.
• Skill to adapt psychological theory and practice flexibly within a cancer and palliative care surgical context.
• Skills to deliver one to one and group therapy remotely
• Ability and skills to set up, and deliver where indicated, group therapy and/or psycho-education programmes.
• Ability to hold one's own leadership and authority in developing the psychological approaches in cancer surgery
• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• Use skills, knowledge and awareness to support people with appearance related concerns and bodily changes due to cancer surgery.
• Understanding trauma informed care and how it can support those who have had cancer surgery
• Evidence of good audit, service evaluation and research skills

Desirable

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in relation to those who show chronic and complex inter-personal ways of relating and/or distress that may make it difficult for them to engage with medical teams/receive medical treatment/care.
• Skills in the use of methods of communicating clinical material for efficient working in a busy general hospital setting.
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of policy and guidelines within oncology and palliative care that highlight and inform psychological ways of working with both individuals living with cancer/palliative condition and the wider system supporting them (professionals and significant others).
• Knowledge and skills abut using psychological approaches pre-surgery (Prehabilitation)

Other

Essential

• Awareness and appropriate use of governance processes, using these in a timely and responsive way to protect oneself and others
• Willingness to talk about death and dying using psychologically informed approaches both clinically and in supervision/training of others
• Experience of working with people from culturally and ethnically rich and diverse communities,
• Good self-awareness and ability to reflect with others within a team, in supervision and management, with the aim of developing and learning from others.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).