Clinical Psychologist (Congenital Cardiology)

Job description

Job responsibilities

Clinical:

1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex 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.

2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients psychological and mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients 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 specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

7. 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.

8. 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 with particular reference to deliberate self-harm.

9. To act as care coordinator, 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 clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care.

10. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients 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 senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues2.

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

______________________________________________________________________

2 Please note that all post holders of clinical psychology posts receive clinical supervision. This is not to be confused with management supervision in AFC terms.

3. To provide professional and clinical supervision of assistant/graduate psychologists and, as appropriate, to contribute to the supervision of individual cases for trainee clinical psychologists.

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

5. 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

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

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

3. To manage the workloads of assistant and graduate psychologists within the framework of the Services 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.

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.

Person Specification

Experience

Essential

• Experience of 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 presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity
• Ability to maintain a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse

Desirable

• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of working with clients across the lifespan.

Skills & behaviours

Essential

• 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 clients, their families and 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.

Desirable

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups.
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.

Qualifications

Essential

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology
• Two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology, as approved by the HCPC

Desirable

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

Additional Requirements

Essential

• 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 and challenging behaviour

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.

Employer details

Employer name

Leeds Teaching Hospitals

Address

Leeds General Infirmary

Great George Street

Leeds

LS1 3EX

Employer's website

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