Principal Clinical Psychologist (XR09)

Job responsibilities

PRINCIPAL DUTIES & AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

Clinical

1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of patients referred to the service, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of highly complex data from a variety of sources including neuropsychological and psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with patients, family members and others involved in the patients care.

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

3. 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.

4. 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.

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

6. To provide highly specialised psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to patients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plans.

7. To ensure that all relevant professionals have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of patients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.

8. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual patients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management with particular reference to deliberate self-harm.

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 treatment plans of patients under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

11. To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by staff and agencies outside the Trust.

Teaching, training, and supervision

1. To receive regular clinical professional supervision2 from a more senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues .

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

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 and to qualified clinical 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 with the patient group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.

Management, recruitment, policy and service development:

1. To participate as a senior clinician in the development of a high quality, responsive and accessible service including advising both the Lead Consultant Clinical Psychologist for the designated clinical speciality/area and the Head of Department on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

2. To assume line management responsibilities for other clinical psychologists and assistants as appropriate or requested

3. To exercise responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to the post-holder, whether in the form of other qualified and unqualified graduate psychology staff, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of patients.

4. To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the post-holders area of responsibility.

5. To contribute to the planning and development of services for patients within the designated clinical speciality/area across the patient pathway including advising both the Lead Consultant Clinical Psychologist for the designated clinical speciality/area and the Head of Department on where changes need to occur.

6. To initiate and implement service developments and projects with the designated clinical speciality/area.

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

Research and service evaluation

1. To take the psychology lead, as a senior clinician, in the evaluation, monitoring and development of the operational policies of service areas for which the post-holder is responsible through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit and ensuring the incorporation of psychological frameworks for understanding and provision of high quality care.

2. To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other relevant professionals.

3. To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice/ supervision to other staff within the Department and, where appropriate, to other staff within the Trust and to disseminate information gained from research by presentation and publication.

4. To initiate and implement 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.

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

Experience

Essential

• -Assessed significant experience and competencies from working as a qualified clinical psychologist including significant post qualification experience within the designated specialty
• -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
• 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 specialist psychological assessment and treatment of patients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.

Desirable

• -Qualified experience of working with multi-disciplinary teams and supervising healthcare staff.
• -Experience of working with Paediatric health condition(s) covered by the designated clinical speciality/area
• -Experience of working in medical multi-disciplinary teams and offering systemic interpretations to have impact on the team functioning in patient care.
• -Knowledge of specialist therapy models (such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy [ACT], Compassion Focused Therapy [CFT] and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing [EMDR])
• and children with physical health conditions.
• -Experience of representing psychology in meetings with service planners/commissioners to plan the patient pathway across community and acute services
• -Experience of managing the operational and line managerial responsibilities of a clinical service

Qualifications

Essential

• -Post graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, t
• two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology, as accredited by the British Psychological Society.
• -Further training in a specialised area of clinical practice through formal post-doctoral training (diploma or equivalent) or a combination of specialist short courses
• together with an evidenced portfolio of supervised practice based learning in a specialist area of clinical practice as assessed by an experienced clinical supervisor
• -Completion of formal clinical supervisor training sufficient to be able to supervise doctoral trainees and -Registration as a Clinical Psychologist with Health and Care Professions Council

Desirable

• -Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
• -Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice

Skills & behaviours

Essential

• -Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care co-ordinator (or equivalent in a physical healthcare
• setting) and also within the context of a multi-disciplinary care plan.
• -Experience of teaching, training and provision of professional and clinical supervision.
• -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 behaviour.

Desirable

• -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 effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to patients, their families, carers
• -Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• -Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• -Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
• -Able to fulfil Occupational Health requirements for the post (with reasonable adjustments if necessary), including clearance on blood borne viruses in compliance with Trust Policy
• -Highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies for specific difficult to treat groups
• -Knowledge of legislation in relation to the patient group and mental health

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).