Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust

Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

This job is now closed

Job summary

Oxleas are seeking to recruit a clinically skilled, innovative and experienced Clinical or Counselling Psychologist to provide clinical and professional leadership to one of the locality community mental health teams in the London Brough of Bromley based in Orpington. ADAPT-E is a multi-disciplinary mental health team working with Anxiety, Depression, Personality and Trauma for the East of the locality; this is essentially the non-psychosis secondary care community mental health team.

The post holder will work alongside the ADAPT Consultant Psychologist in taking a locality lead role in managing the provision of psychological therapy in the team and join the team manager and consultant psychiatrist in forming the senior clinical team to provide clinical leadership to the ADAPT-E team

The post would be suitable to current 8A's (with at least 3.5 years post qualified experience) or 8B's with relevant experience and transferable skills who have a specialist interest in complex trauma and complex emotional needs.

ADAPT-E provides an established 18 month dual modality MBT program, EMDR, psychodynamic psychotherapy, CAT, CBT and a range of group approaches including CFT, MBCT and Trauma Stabilisation. The team also has an established SCM program.

Main duties of the job

A central component of the post will be taking an operational leadership role in further developing the role and remit of psychological therapy in the service. This would encompass support and oversight of referral screening as well as waiting list management, supervision and consultation to the wider team. Service development and innovation are embraced and 3rd sector working, training and working across service transitions would all form aspects of the leadership part of the role.

The post will also ensure clinical time for the provision of highly specialised psychological therapy. Specialist training in a particular modality will be highly desirable eg MBT, EMDR, SCM, DBT, CAT, CBT, CFT or psychodynamic approaches.

The ADAPT-E psychology team is comprised of a band 4 Assistant Psychologist a band 6 CAP, band 7 and 8a psychological therapists, an art psychotherapist and a borough wide service lead consultant psychologist. Doctoral trainee and honorary placement supervision are also encouraged and the services maintain close links with the Salomons ClinPsyc Doctoral Program. Supervision of the local psychology team and yearly appraisals (PDR) will also form some of the operational tasks of the post. The new incumbent will also join an established group of senior psychological therapists from across the borough. This is an established leadership forum offering peer support, and links to senior management.

About us

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children's centres, schools and people's homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:

We're Kind
We're
We Listen
We Care

Date posted

21 March 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 8b

Salary

£67,950 to £78,028 a year pa inc

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time

Reference number

277-7092263-CMH

Job locations

Carlton Parade

13-14 Carlton Parade

Orpington

BR6 0JB

Job description

Job responsibilities

Please see Job Description and Personal Specification for full details of role requirements.

Clinical:To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the Bromley ADAPT-E service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological 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 clients, family members and others involved in the clients care.

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings.

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

To evaluate and make 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.

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

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

To ensure that all members of the treating team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management, including responsibilities within the policies and clinical duties to safeguarding vulnerable adults and children.

To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the clients needs, coordinating the work of others involved with care, taking responsibility for arranging CPA reviews as required and communicating effectively with the client, his/her family and all others involved in the network of care, and to monitor progress during the course of multi-disciplinary interventions.

To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, complex information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care. This will require being able to convey this to clients, families and colleagues with a range of understanding and knowledge so will require the ability to be flexible, adaptive and simple but yet retain a sophisticated understanding and approach. This communication is likely to take place in situations which are highly emotive and with people who also have cognitive problems such as dementia that impacts their understanding and retention.To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team.

Teaching, training and supervision:To provide clinical placements for trainee clinical and/or counselling psychologists, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.

To provide post-qualification training (CPD) and clinical professional supervision to recently qualified clinical and/or counselling psychologists attached to the team.

To provide advice, consultation and training and clinical supervision to other members of the team for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve clients functioning.

To provide pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or counselling psychology as appropriate.

To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and post-graduate training and clinical supervision.

To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.Management, recruitment, policy and service development.

To participate as a senior clinician in the development of a high quality, responsive and accessible service including advising both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

To exercise delegated responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to the service, whether in the form of additional qualified and unqualified graduate psychology staff, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of patients.

To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service/team.

To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistant, graduate, trainees and qualified clinical psychologists.

To provide day to day management of the psychological therapy staff within the ADAPT-E service.

IT responsibilities:To regularly enter and update information regarding clinical activity into the RiO clinical records system.

To be proficient in the use of IT for email, intranet and clinical record purposes. To be familiar with word processing, database and statistical packages, and to use such packages for complex data analysis as necessary. To use appropriate computer software to develop and create clinical or other service-related reports or documents.

Research and service evaluation:To take the psychology lead, as a senior clinician, in the evaluation, monitoring and development of the services operational policies, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit and ensuring incorporation of psychological frameworks for understanding and provision of high quality care.

To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other staff in the service.

To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.

To initiate project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve services to clients and their families.

General:To maintain registration with the Heath Professions Council as a Clinical Psychologist.

To ensure the development, maintenance and dissemination of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes.To ensure the development and articulation of best practice in psychology within the service area and contribute across the service by exercising the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.

To maintain and promulgate 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, Health Professions Council and Trust policies and procedures.

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.