South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

Assistant Psychologist

This job is now closed

Job summary

This is a fantastic opportunity for an enthusiastic Assistant Psychologist aspiring to a career in psychology. The Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma (CADAT) is an outpatient psychological therapies clinic which specialises in assessing and treating people with anxiety disorders using CBT. We take great pride in our work and treat local and national patients across a range of severities, to a very high standard.

Prospective candidates should be able to demonstrate an excellent academic track record, good organisational and communication skills, and the ability to assist in clinically related administration. We are seeking eager and creative individuals who will be directly involved in the running of the clinic and who are interested in pursuing a career in psychology. The post will include both clinical and administrative parts and the applicant will be required to demonstrate abilities in both areas.

Do please contact Dr Blake Stobie, Head of Service (blake.stobie@slam.nhs.uk) should you wish to discuss this post further.

Main duties of the job

The post holder's duties will include tasks which are predominantly clinical/clinical administrative and others which are predominantly organizational/administrative/reception duties in a clinic serving patients with specific anxiety disorders. We expect there to be a roughly 50/50 split between these broad groups of tasks.

The successful applicant will be offered supervision by a qualified clinical psychologist and will have opportunities to observe treatment sessions and conduct clinical assessments under supervision.

The applicant will ensure that systems are in place and working effectively to support service delivery, including monitoring of outcomes across primary, secondary and tertiary care.

About us

The Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma's remit includes the delivery and dissemination of empirically validated cognitive-behavioural treatments for panic disorder, specific phobias, social phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and body dysmorphic disorder. The clinic provides a model of best practice in the integration of research, development and clinical treatment. Most of the treatments delivered are considered to be at the cutting edge of developments in the field. The clinic is primarily an NHS treatment service for people with anxiety disorders. Some research is also done at the clinic, with a focus on identifying maintaining cognitive factors in anxiety disorders, enhancing the effectiveness of existing cognitive therapies, evaluating how well these programmes generalise, reducing the therapist time required for treatment without loss of effectiveness, developing and implementing effective programmes for training others, and identifying key change processes in cognitive therapy.

Please see the following websites for further information:

https://slam.nhs.uk/service-detail/service/centre-for-anxiety-disorders-and-trauma-112/

Date posted

27 January 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 4

Salary

£31,944 to £34,937 a year per annum incl. of inner HCAs

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time

Reference number

334-CLI-6930119

Job locations

Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma

99 Denmark Hill

London

SE5 8AZ

Job description

Job responsibilities

1) The postholder will set up, update and maintain clinical databases relevant for outcomes, activity and patient flow through the clinic and produce reports for a variety of purposes as needed.

2) The postholder will observe assessment and treatments in the clinic and contribute to aspects of treatment delivery and clinical administration (e.g. session notes; assessment reports) under close supervision of a qualified therapist/their supervisor.

3) The post holder will work with the senior administrator in CADAT and contribute to numerous clinical administration tasks as required including communicating effectively with service users, carers, therapists, administrators and research staff and wider members of the healthcare system as required by phone, email or in person; uploading care plans; processing new referrals (eg entering demographic and referral data; liaising with referrers and our Patient Funding Team as necessary); discharging patients at end of treatment; setting up new employees and trainees on internal systems (e.g. access to the shared drive; to clinical record systems); processing Data Protection requests in order to meet deadlines and comply with the legal timeframe; ordering and tracking supplies.

4) The postholder will fulfil in-person administrative duties in the main admin office as required. This will include joining a weekly rota of reception desk and phone duties on specific days (9am-5pm), as well as covering lunchtimes, annual leave or as advised by the senior administrator

5) The postholder will be required to travel to home visits, multi-disciplinary meetings, community placements and psychology meetings as appropriate and across the Trust when required.

6) The postholder may be asked to administer questionnaires and conduct assessments with service users, under appropriate supervision.

7) The postholder will use Qualtrics and other programs to ensure the timely and accurate distribution of questionnaire and other materials related to assessment and research. The postholder will ensure that assessments are complete and outcome measures are stored in electronic data bases and added to electronic patient records at appropriate time points.

8) The postholder will monitor treatment waiting lists, coordinate the activity of the clinic staff and therapists and assist with patient allocation to therapists in the clinic.

9) The postholder will participate in the consultation and engagement of service users in the planning and delivering services as required and may be able to contribute to the setting up of a service user involvement register, its maintenance and communication with its members.

10) The post holder will be able to contribute to, with close supervision, the setting up and running of psychoeducation groups for people on the clinics waiting list dependent on service needs.

11) The postholder will participate in demonstrating work methods to newly recruited (honorary) Assistant Psychologists, interns and honorary psychologists as required, and will to support their development of necessary skills

12) The postholder will be expected to maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry, and to maintain data bases and enter data, and perform analyses and produce reports.

13) The postholder will assist in the design and implementation of audit, research and development projects to inform the service. This will include undertaking data collection, analysis, the production of reports and summaries, using IT and statistical programmes, searches of evidence-based literature and research to assist in the development in the Trust of evidence based practice, and conducting surveys with service users and carers to gather views on service provision as required.

14) The postholder will be required to respond appropriately and professionally to emotionally distressing situations (e.g. challenging behaviour) and to support others involved in such situations.

15) The postholder will help maintain and update CADATs twitter account.

16) The postholder will be responsible for monitoring completion of key performance indicators (KPIs) by the team and support clinicians in achieving target completion rates for the service as required by the Trust.

17) The postholder will act in a manner that supports a psychologically informed framework for the service, and participate in the team or services delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities.

18) The postholder will follow policies and procedures in their own area of work.

19) The postholder will receive supervision from a qualified therapist in the service and attend fortnightly group supervision led by clinical psychology trainees.

20) The postholder will ensure that all information generated by own work is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.

21) The post holder will contribute to allocating clinical observations to trainees and assistant psychologists in the service

22) The post holder will be responsible for keeping an inventory of and tracking IT equipment allocated to staff and manage room bookings for staff

23) The post holder will, following appropriate training, act as fire warden and/or health and safety champion and collate regular audit information in relation to these rolls.