Job summary
We are seeking a highly motivated and compassionate clinician to join our Early Intervention and Community Mental Health Team Psychosis Pathway. This role offers an exciting opportunity to contribute to high-quality, evidence-based care for individuals experiencing first episode psychosis and those with ongoing psychosis-related needs within the community.
The post-holder will play a key role in delivering psychologically informed interventions, supporting multidisciplinary colleagues, and contributing to service development within the psychosis pathway. The role will be central to strengthening psychological practice across the pathway, providing formulation, consultation, and supervision to support staff and enhance patient outcomes.
A key aspect of this role will be active involvement in shaping and implementing our new Enhanced Psychosis Pathway, ensuring it reflects best practice, emerging evidence, and the needs of our local population. The successful candidate will help lead on developing structures, processes, and innovative approaches that improve access, quality, and continuity of care for service users and their families.
Main duties of the job
To act as aspecialist psychology resource for the Early Intervention and Community Mental Health Psychosis Pathway, providing expert support to multidisciplinary staff working with service users who present with moderate to severe and often complex psychosis-related needs.
Demonstrate strong professional leadership for Psychological Services within the Psychosis Pathway across Coventry and Warwickshire, supporting the development of psychologically informed practice and promoting high-quality, evidence-based care.
Provide specialist psychological advice, including expertise in specialist assessment methods, psychological formulations, and evidence-based therapies relevant to psychosis.
Take responsibility for the clinical governance of psychologists and psychological therapists working within the Early Intervention and Community Mental Health psychosis services, ensuring safe, ethical, and effective practice aligned with national standards.
Work closely with the Operational Service Manager and clinical leads to interpret and deliver national psychosis-related clinical guidance, quality standards, and performance targets, supporting the service to meet local and national expectations.
Lead on monitoring and improving the quality of psychological practice and service delivery.
Provide professional oversight of research, audit, service evaluation, and quality-improvement activity within the psychosis pathway.
About us
At Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust (CWPT), we deliver a wide range of physical, mental health, learning disability and autism services, and are proud to serve communities across Coventry, Warwickshire and beyond.
We put 'people at our heart'; this ethos is at the centre of everything we do and how we do it. We care for our staff and colleagues as much as they care for others and offer a wide range of benefits and development opportunities.
- generous annual leave entitlement which increases during your time with us
- excellent learning and development opportunities, including apprenticeship frameworks, distance learning, internal training, coaching and mentoring, and much more
- salary sacrifice schemes for lease car/ vehicle, Cycle to Work, home and electronics, gym membership and more
- discounts with a range of retailers, restaurants and entertainment venues through our Employee Assistance Programme and NHS discount schemes
- wellbeing support, including an in-house counselling service, external helpline and more
- staff networks and support group
We're always on the lookout for people who share our passion for improving the lives and wellbeing of people in our community, as well as our values of compassion, collaboration, excellence, integrity and respect.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Leadership & Management
Provide strategic and operational leadership for psychological provision within the Psychosis and Early Intervention (EI) Pathway. You will lead and professionally manage psychological staff, ensuring high standards of clinical practice, effective caseload and demand management, workforce development, and optimal use of resources. The role includes oversight of pathway performance, contributing to business planning, and ensuring robust clinical governance processes. You will play a central role in shaping the longterm strategic direction of the psychosis and EI pathway, embedding a culture of reflective practice, learning, coproduction, and continuous quality improvement.
Clinical Expertise Deliver highly specialist psychological assessment, formulation, and evidencebased interventions for people experiencing first-episode psychosis or complex psychosisrelated presentations. This includes working with highrisk and highcomplexity cases, trauma-informed practice, and supporting individuals and families to understand and manage psychosis. You will hold clinical responsibility for complex cases within the pathway, providing expert consultation, formulation support, and specialist advice to multidisciplinary colleagues, partner agencies, and external stakeholders to ensure safe, effective, recoveryfocused care.
Service Development, Evaluation & Research Lead on service innovation, pathway development, and quality improvement initiatives to enhance outcomes and reduce inequalities in access to psychological interventions for individuals affected by psychosis. You will design and oversee audit, evaluation, and research activity within the pathway, ensuring findings inform practice development and align with national EI and psychosis standards. The role includes contributing to research governance and promoting evidence-based, outcomefocused, NICErecommended psychological therapies across the service.
System Collaboration & Partnership Working Work collaboratively across organisational boundaries, including acute care, community mental health services, primary care, social care, voluntary sector providers, and commissioning bodies. You will provide psychological leadership across multiagency forums, supporting integrated psychosis care pathways and contributing to effective transitions between services. The role involves strengthening system-wide approaches to early detection, relapse prevention, and holistic support for individuals and families affected by psychosis.
Education, Workforce Development & Supervision Provide high-quality clinical and professional supervision to psychologists, trainees, CBT therapists, and wider MDT staff in line with professional and regulatory standards. Contribute to recruitment, appraisal, and workforce development processes across the psychosis and EI pathway. The role includes delivering training programmes, enhancing psychological and formulation skills within the wider workforce, and contributing to doctoral-level teaching, training, and research supervision in partnership with academic institutions.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Leadership & Management
Provide strategic and operational leadership for psychological provision within the Psychosis and Early Intervention (EI) Pathway. You will lead and professionally manage psychological staff, ensuring high standards of clinical practice, effective caseload and demand management, workforce development, and optimal use of resources. The role includes oversight of pathway performance, contributing to business planning, and ensuring robust clinical governance processes. You will play a central role in shaping the longterm strategic direction of the psychosis and EI pathway, embedding a culture of reflective practice, learning, coproduction, and continuous quality improvement.
Clinical Expertise Deliver highly specialist psychological assessment, formulation, and evidencebased interventions for people experiencing first-episode psychosis or complex psychosisrelated presentations. This includes working with highrisk and highcomplexity cases, trauma-informed practice, and supporting individuals and families to understand and manage psychosis. You will hold clinical responsibility for complex cases within the pathway, providing expert consultation, formulation support, and specialist advice to multidisciplinary colleagues, partner agencies, and external stakeholders to ensure safe, effective, recoveryfocused care.
Service Development, Evaluation & Research Lead on service innovation, pathway development, and quality improvement initiatives to enhance outcomes and reduce inequalities in access to psychological interventions for individuals affected by psychosis. You will design and oversee audit, evaluation, and research activity within the pathway, ensuring findings inform practice development and align with national EI and psychosis standards. The role includes contributing to research governance and promoting evidence-based, outcomefocused, NICErecommended psychological therapies across the service.
System Collaboration & Partnership Working Work collaboratively across organisational boundaries, including acute care, community mental health services, primary care, social care, voluntary sector providers, and commissioning bodies. You will provide psychological leadership across multiagency forums, supporting integrated psychosis care pathways and contributing to effective transitions between services. The role involves strengthening system-wide approaches to early detection, relapse prevention, and holistic support for individuals and families affected by psychosis.
Education, Workforce Development & Supervision Provide high-quality clinical and professional supervision to psychologists, trainees, CBT therapists, and wider MDT staff in line with professional and regulatory standards. Contribute to recruitment, appraisal, and workforce development processes across the psychosis and EI pathway. The role includes delivering training programmes, enhancing psychological and formulation skills within the wider workforce, and contributing to doctoral-level teaching, training, and research supervision in partnership with academic institutions.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Post-graduate doctoral level training in Clinical Psychology (or other relevant Doctoral-level Practitioner Psychologist training pathway) as accredited by the BPS. To including models of Psychopathology, Clinical Psychometrics and Neuropsychology, two or more distinct Psychological Therapies and lifespan Developmental Psychology
- Post-doctoral training and ongoing CPD in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice relevant to the post and/or as specified in the job advert
- Current registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a Practitioner Psychologist
- Formal training and experience in supervision of qualified Psychological Practitioners
- Leadership training and experience relevant to the delivery of NHS psychological services
Knowledge
Essential
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and evaluation
- Highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies within the speciality
- High level ability to communicate effectively at both a written and oral level complex highly technical and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and a wide range of lay and professional persons within and outside the NHS
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non- professional groups.
- Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of psychology.
- Knowledge of legislation for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to the client group and mental health.
Experience
Essential
- Assessed substantial experience of working as a qualified Practitioner Psychologist including within the speciality
- Training and experience of adapting therapy protocols to meet the needs of new parents/carers
- Substantial post qualification experience of working with complex mental health difficulties, including experience of safeguarding procedures and risk assessment and management.
- Training and experience of providing and disseminating evidence-based practice within the speciality
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and stressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse
- Experience of exercising full psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care co-ordinator and also within the context of a multi-disciplinary care plan.
- Experience of teaching and training psychological theory and approaches.
- Experience of supervising trainees and qualified practitioners.
- Experience of professional leadership of pre-qualified and qualified Psychological Practitioners.
- Experience of multiprofessional leadership of NHS teams or services within the designated speciality.
- Experience of multiprofessional leadership of NHS teams or services within the designated speciality.
- Experience of the application of psychology across different cultural contexts.
Other
Essential
- Must be a car driver with access to a car, insured for business use
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Post-graduate doctoral level training in Clinical Psychology (or other relevant Doctoral-level Practitioner Psychologist training pathway) as accredited by the BPS. To including models of Psychopathology, Clinical Psychometrics and Neuropsychology, two or more distinct Psychological Therapies and lifespan Developmental Psychology
- Post-doctoral training and ongoing CPD in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice relevant to the post and/or as specified in the job advert
- Current registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a Practitioner Psychologist
- Formal training and experience in supervision of qualified Psychological Practitioners
- Leadership training and experience relevant to the delivery of NHS psychological services
Knowledge
Essential
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and evaluation
- Highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies within the speciality
- High level ability to communicate effectively at both a written and oral level complex highly technical and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and a wide range of lay and professional persons within and outside the NHS
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non- professional groups.
- Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of psychology.
- Knowledge of legislation for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to the client group and mental health.
Experience
Essential
- Assessed substantial experience of working as a qualified Practitioner Psychologist including within the speciality
- Training and experience of adapting therapy protocols to meet the needs of new parents/carers
- Substantial post qualification experience of working with complex mental health difficulties, including experience of safeguarding procedures and risk assessment and management.
- Training and experience of providing and disseminating evidence-based practice within the speciality
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and stressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse
- Experience of exercising full psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care co-ordinator and also within the context of a multi-disciplinary care plan.
- Experience of teaching and training psychological theory and approaches.
- Experience of supervising trainees and qualified practitioners.
- Experience of professional leadership of pre-qualified and qualified Psychological Practitioners.
- Experience of multiprofessional leadership of NHS teams or services within the designated speciality.
- Experience of multiprofessional leadership of NHS teams or services within the designated speciality.
- Experience of the application of psychology across different cultural contexts.
Other
Essential
- Must be a car driver with access to a car, insured for business use
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).
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.
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
