Senior Clinical Psychologist (XR08)

Job description

Job responsibilities

JOB PURPOSE/SUMMARY

To provide a qualified Clinical or Counselling Psychology service to NHS staff members and teams, across all sites and sectors of care by:

a) Providing highly specialist psychological assessment and interventions,

b) Offering advice and consultation on service users psychological wellbeing needs

c) Using research skills for audit, policy and service development and leading on research projects within the area served by the team/service

d) Working autonomously in the execution of these duties and within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the Psychology Teams, Department and Trust policies and procedures.

PRINCIPAL DUTIES & AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

Clinical:

1. To provide specialist psychological assessments based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with staff members and appropriate others.

2. To formulate, develop and implement plans for psychological interventions to address staff member and team wellbeing, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of presenting needs, and employing evidence-based methods.

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

4. To evaluate and make decisions about intervention options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical, systemic and developmental processes that have shaped the individual or group.

5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of service users.

6. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals and stakeholders, contributing directly to staff members mental health and workplace wellbeing.

7. To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychological understanding of staff members and teams occupational wellbeing needs. .

8. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual service users and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

9. To act as care co-ordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans under enhanced CPA (or its equivalent in the acute physical health care setting) including patients, their carers referring agents and others involved in the network of care.

10. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and intervention plans of service users under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

Teaching, training, and supervision

1. To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a more senior clinical/counselling psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues

2. To gain additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to clinical/counselling psychology and the service (as agreed with the Lead Psychologist and Head of Department) up to two sessions per week.

3. To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to other MDT staffs psychological work as appropriate.

4. To provide professional and clinical supervision of doctoral trainee and graduate/ assistant psychologists.

5. To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical, health and/or counselling psychology, as appropriate.

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

Management, recruitment, policy and service development

1. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the team, specialty and department operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.

2. To advise both the service and the Lead Psychologist on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

3. To manage the workloads of assistant graduate psychologists and doctoral trainee clinical psychologists, within the framework of the team/specialty and Department policies and procedures.

4. To be involved, as appropriate, in the short listing and interviewing of assistant / graduate psychologists.

Research and service evaluation

1. To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.

2. To undertake, as a major component of the post, appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research, and to disseminate appropriate material via presentation and publication.

3. To lead on research projects within the area served by the team/service.

4. To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.

5. To provide appropriate research supervision of doctoral trainees and graduate assistant psychologists.

COMMUNICATION & WORKING RELATIONSHIPS

The jobholder will liaise with Consultants and other medical, nursing or allied health professional staff across the organisation. They will also liaise with the Lead Clinical Psychologist, other Clinical/Counselling Psychologists working in the department, members of the psychology team and members of other disciplines and agencies responsible for a patients care.

12. SPECIAL WORKING CONDITIONS

i) PHYSICAL EFFORT:

The following physical skills are needed in this clinical post:

a) highly-developed skills in psychometric assessment. This involves manipulating of complex test materials, attention to detail for precise and accurate placement of test materials and timing and recording of patients responses, acute observational and sensory skills to assess and record a patients behaviour and make comparisons with standardised test norms. It includes the ability to co-ordinate all of these activities whilst establishing rapport with a patient, maintaining their interest and motivation to carry out the assessment. Assessment sessions may be up to 2-3hrs in length. In addition the post requires:

b) keyboard skills

In this post the psychologist is engaged in clinical work for more than 50% of the time. In clinical sessions with service users the post-holder is required to sit in restricted positions for lengthy clinical assessments or psychotherapeutic sessions (up to 3-4hrs).

b) Test equipment weighing c. 3 kilos has to be lifted and moved short distances in the majority of clinical sessions. There are requirements to move case notes/test equipment between clinic locations. This involves moving loads of c 8 kilos twice per week.

ii) MENTAL EFFORT:

This post requires the psychologist to work with distressed and emotionally distraught service users. Over 50% of the post is in clinical work with service users. Psychotherapeutic work with distressed people requires intense listening and concentration over long periods of time, the psychologist actively attending to what is said, making complex clinical judgements concerning the relevance of what is said and making decisions about how to respond to the service user in line with best evidence based practice.

iii) EMOTIONAL EFFORT:

Psychologists, by the nature of their work, deal with highly distressing material. They work for much of their time in emotionally demanding environments. This clinical post deals with this type of material for the majority of clinical sessions i.e. over 50% of the time. Some service users will have histories of severe emotional, physical or sexual abuse and some will be severely depressed and suicidal. Others will have experienced traumatic incidents. There may also be conversations around issues about dying and the end of life. The work of the psychologist involves listening to the service users account of their experiences, carrying out a detailed assessment of their psychological problems and working psychotherapeutically with them to help them overcome and deal with their problems.

iv) WORKING CONDITIONS:

In this post there may be some exposure to service users who are intimidating and/or physically aggressive. The Department has a system of panic alarms which can be used and a departmental policy and procedure for dealing with aggressive or violent patients. The Department works closely with mental health services when required.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Post graduate doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology,
• Further training in a specialised area of clinical practice through formal post-doctoral training (diploma or equivalent) or a combination of specialist short courses
• Completion of (or completion by the time of starting the post) formal clinical supervisor training sufficient to be able to supervise doctoral trainees.

Desirable

• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of patients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in-patient settings.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of patient groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity.

Desirable

• Experience of teaching, training and supervision
• Experience of working in medical multi-disciplinary teams and offering systemic interpretations to have impact on the team functioning in patient care.

Skills and behaviours

Essential

• Ability to exercise the full clinical responsibility for patients psychological care and treatment within the clinical specialty and to co-ordinate the psychological care provided by others.
• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging be.

Desirable

• Ability to provide emotional support and professional mentorship to multi-disciplinary team members.

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.

UK Registration

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

Employer details

Employer name

Leeds Teaching Hospitals

Address

St. James's University Hospital

Beckett Street

Leeds

LS9 7TF

Employer's website

https://www.leedsth.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)