Job summary
Trust Head of Psychological Services
Chief Psychological Professions Officer (CPPO)
We are seeking an outstanding consultant psychologist to take on the senior leadership role of Chief Psychological Professions Officer at London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust. This is a pivotal post, providing strategic and professional leadership to the Psychological Services Network (PSN) - a growing, diverse, and highly skilled community of psychological professionals embedded across our medical and surgical services. You will work at all levels of the organisation to shape, support and extend psychologically informed care, ensuring it is compassionate, safe and grounded in evidence.
As the most senior psychologist in the Trust, you will play a central role in defining and delivering the vision for psychological care across our services - for patients, families and staff. You will guide the development of new and existing specialist psychological services, influence senior decision-making, and ensure excellent governance across our PSN workforce.
This is a varied and dynamic leadership role that blends strategic oversight, workforce development and professional governance with a protected clinical component (0.4wte), tailored to your experience and the Trust's evolving needs. You will also play a leading role in advancing equity, inclusion and sustainability across our workforce, and contribute to regional and national forums as a senior representative of LNWH.
Main duties of the job
Psychological professions within LNWH are embedded within medical/surgical specialities. To maximise integration, line management and budget holding for the workforce normally sits within the specialities. From a professional governance perspective, they come together as the Psychological Services Network (PSN).
This post provides professional leadership to all psychological professionals working within the Trust. All recruitment and configuration of the PSN workforce involves the post holder who is responsible for the governance and delivery of all specialist psychological care.
While the overarching model is for LNWH to employ its own psychological workforce, where there are clear advantages to outsourcing this provision, the post holder is responsible for overseeing relevant service level agreements.
In addition to providing governance and leadership, the post holder provides direction to the psychological workforce to enhance safety, efficiencies, effectiveness and the reach of psychologically informed care across the Trust.
As the Chief Psychological Professions Officer for LNWH, the post holder participates in relevant regional and national activities/forums.
Professional and clinical supervision are a significant element of the role, ensuring that the senior psychological workforce is well supported, governed and developed.
Informal enquiries are very welcome. Contact: Mark Barrington, Head of Psychological Services, 07809 878659 or markbarrington@nhs.net
About us
London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust (LNWH) cares for the people of Brent, Ealing, Harrow and beyond.
Our team of more than 8,200 clinical and support staff serve a diverse population of almost one million people.
We run major acute services at:
- Northwick Park Hospital: home to one of the busiest emergency departments (A&E) in the country. The hospital provides a full range of services including the country's top-rated hyper-acute stroke unit and one of only three hyper-acute rehabilitation units in the UK
- St Mark's Hospital: an internationally renowned specialist centre for bowel disease
- Ealing Hospital: a busy district general hospital providing a range of clinical services, as well as 24/7 emergency department and urgent care centre, and specialist care at Meadow House Hospice
- Central Middlesex Hospital: our planned care site, hosting a range of surgical and outpatient services and collocated with an urgent care centre.
We are a university teaching NHS trust, in recognition of the important role we play in training clinicians of the future and bringing the benefits of research to the public.
Job description
Job responsibilities
To view the main responsibility, please see the attached the Job Description and Person Specification.
Job description
Job responsibilities
To view the main responsibility, please see the attached the Job Description and Person Specification.
Person Specification
Education / Qualifications
Essential
- Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical/counselling psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS
- Registered as an Applied Psychology Practitioner member of the HCPC
- Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS and HCPC including post-doctoral/graduate training in applied clinical health psychology, clinical neuropsychology and/or an evidence-based clinical intervention e.g. post-graduate certificate in Compassion Focused Therapy, Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, Family/Systemic, Psychodynamic Therapy
- Leadership and/or management training qualification
Desirable
- Registered with the British Psychological Society and/or Association of Clinical Psychologists
- MSc in Health Psychology or inclusion in the SRCN
Knowledge & Experience
Essential
- Substantial consultant level experience within NHS acute physical health settings
- Evidence of awareness, understanding, respect for and action to support the needs of individuals from diverse social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds and experience of applying psychological services with due regard to issues of equity, diversity and inclusion
- Substantial consultant level experience in the provision of leadership, line management, professional management and clinical supervision of psychological professionals and staff of other disciplines within complex organisational structures such as the NHS
- Substantial knowledge of national and local initiatives and legislation associated with the fields of Clinical Health Psychology, Clinical Neuropsychology, Occupational Health Psychology, mental health and physical healthcare more generally and around related disciplines, and their implications for professional management and clinical practice
- Experience of co-ordinating psychological services with those of other departments and disciplines to establish and maintain effective multi-disciplinary patient care to meet the needs of the population, such that the services provided are equitable, cost effective and affordable.
- Substantial experience of operationally managing and delivering a service within resources, managing flow of capacity and demand, meeting key performance indicators while ensuring clinical and professional governance to support and maintain good clinical practice. Including designing and implementing programmes to establish outcomes against which to monitor the quality, delivery and impact of services
- Experience of work in a position of leadership with commissioners, agencies, committees and stakeholders to identify potential sources of funding, preparing bids and business cases to secure and allocate funding to develop new or existing services across a wide range of physical health problems
Desirable
- Experience of relevant local and national roles e.g. as a National Assessor, as a committee member for Special Interest Groups, or within the British Psychological Society or Association of Clinical Psychologists
- Experience of establishing, developing and maintaining partnerships with Higher Education Institutes
Skills, Abilities & Attributes
Essential
- Ability to manage, lead, make decisions, organise, delegate and prioritise and to work to deadlines in accordance with agreed project plans. The ability to work flexibly, co-ordinate work with senior colleagues and to a high standard in a high-pressure setting, where information presented and circumstances are changeable
- Evidence of excellent interpersonal, communication and listening skills, including the ability to influence, motivate and negotiate, and to be able to liaise with a wide spectrum of people of all levels, agencies and organisations
- The ability to work independently and be self-motivating and enthusiastic, as well as to work effectively within and to motivate teams, involving others, as appropriate, with all projects or service development
Person Specification
Education / Qualifications
Essential
- Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical/counselling psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS
- Registered as an Applied Psychology Practitioner member of the HCPC
- Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS and HCPC including post-doctoral/graduate training in applied clinical health psychology, clinical neuropsychology and/or an evidence-based clinical intervention e.g. post-graduate certificate in Compassion Focused Therapy, Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, Family/Systemic, Psychodynamic Therapy
- Leadership and/or management training qualification
Desirable
- Registered with the British Psychological Society and/or Association of Clinical Psychologists
- MSc in Health Psychology or inclusion in the SRCN
Knowledge & Experience
Essential
- Substantial consultant level experience within NHS acute physical health settings
- Evidence of awareness, understanding, respect for and action to support the needs of individuals from diverse social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds and experience of applying psychological services with due regard to issues of equity, diversity and inclusion
- Substantial consultant level experience in the provision of leadership, line management, professional management and clinical supervision of psychological professionals and staff of other disciplines within complex organisational structures such as the NHS
- Substantial knowledge of national and local initiatives and legislation associated with the fields of Clinical Health Psychology, Clinical Neuropsychology, Occupational Health Psychology, mental health and physical healthcare more generally and around related disciplines, and their implications for professional management and clinical practice
- Experience of co-ordinating psychological services with those of other departments and disciplines to establish and maintain effective multi-disciplinary patient care to meet the needs of the population, such that the services provided are equitable, cost effective and affordable.
- Substantial experience of operationally managing and delivering a service within resources, managing flow of capacity and demand, meeting key performance indicators while ensuring clinical and professional governance to support and maintain good clinical practice. Including designing and implementing programmes to establish outcomes against which to monitor the quality, delivery and impact of services
- Experience of work in a position of leadership with commissioners, agencies, committees and stakeholders to identify potential sources of funding, preparing bids and business cases to secure and allocate funding to develop new or existing services across a wide range of physical health problems
Desirable
- Experience of relevant local and national roles e.g. as a National Assessor, as a committee member for Special Interest Groups, or within the British Psychological Society or Association of Clinical Psychologists
- Experience of establishing, developing and maintaining partnerships with Higher Education Institutes
Skills, Abilities & Attributes
Essential
- Ability to manage, lead, make decisions, organise, delegate and prioritise and to work to deadlines in accordance with agreed project plans. The ability to work flexibly, co-ordinate work with senior colleagues and to a high standard in a high-pressure setting, where information presented and circumstances are changeable
- Evidence of excellent interpersonal, communication and listening skills, including the ability to influence, motivate and negotiate, and to be able to liaise with a wide spectrum of people of all levels, agencies and organisations
- The ability to work independently and be self-motivating and enthusiastic, as well as to work effectively within and to motivate teams, involving others, as appropriate, with all projects or service development
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.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Additional information
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.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
