Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist Band 8b Main area: Adult Community Mental Health Services

Grade: Band 8b

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Part time - 22.5 hours per week

Job ref: 198-CMH

Site: Memorial Hospital

Town: London

Salary: £67,950 - £78,028 pro rata pa inc

Salary period: Yearly

Closing: 23/04/:59

Interview date: 19/05/2025

Job overview We are delighted to be able to recruit to two 8b Principal Clinical Psychologist posts:

0.6 WTE Greenwich Older People's Mental Health (OPMH) Services (Memorial Hospital).

These posts offer flexible working and can be combined and structured to take into account the postholder's personal and professional interests and preferences. Please state any preference in terms of the post/sessions in your application.

These positions would suit experienced psychologists looking to develop their skills in a senior role. They involve leadership tasks, including operational management, contributing to strategic development within Greenwich and/or Bexley OPMH Psychological Therapies, and supporting provision in our CMHT, Memory Services, and Care Homes Team. The successful candidate will have substantial NHS experience including supervision and management, experience of delivering care in secondary mental health services, and proven skills in a range of clinical models.

The post holder will join well-established and friendly multi-disciplinary teams including professionals from psychiatry, nursing, social work, occupational therapy and admin alongside well-regarded psychological therapists who are embedded in each team. There is a broad range of clinical work and opportunities for professional development.

Main duties of the job This is a varied role, which includes providing specialist individual, family and group interventions, neuropsychological assessment, as well as contributing to the therapeutic functions of the teams. You will support the teams with oversight and embedding of NHS transformation and exciting developments in more diverse and new psychological roles, and will contribute to service planning and development, including attendance at relevant management meetings. You will be professionally accountable to the Greenwich or Bexley OPMH Head of Psychological Therapies, and specialist clinical supervision will be provided within the OPMH service. You will also be supported by team managers.

As well as service development and clinical governance roles, we welcome and encourage research and audit interests, including co-producing research with our service users through our programme of service user involvement. Supervision and CPD are prioritised in the Trust, with a range of training and specialist supervision opportunities available. The Trust Psychological Therapists boast a variety of therapeutic skills including CBT, ACT, CAT, DBT, EMDR, Systemic and Art Psychotherapies, and Neuropsychology, with access to the appropriate specialist supervision. We welcome and train students across professions. The successful candidate will be encouraged to consolidate and develop their skills and expertise in a friendly, supportive multi-professional, multi-agency context.

Working for our organisation Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children's centres, schools and people's homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:

• We Listen
• We Care

Detailed job description and main responsibilities Please see Job Description and Personal Specification for full details of role requirements.

Clinical Responsibilities

1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the Older Peoples Mental Health service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological 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 mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods of proven 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 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 ensure that all members of the treating team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients 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 clients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management, including responsibilities within the policies and clinical duties to safeguarding vulnerable adults and children.
9. To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the clients needs, coordinating the work of others involved with care, taking responsibility for arranging CPA reviews as required and communicating effectively with the client, his/her family and all others involved in the network of care, and to monitor progress during the course of multi-disciplinary interventions.
10. To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, complex information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care. This will require being able to convey this to clients, families and colleagues with a range of understanding and knowledge so will require the ability to be flexible, adaptive and simple but yet retain a sophisticated understanding and approach. This communication is likely to take place in situations which are highly emotive and with people who also have cognitive problems such as dementia that impacts their understanding and retention.
11. To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team.

Teaching, training and supervision

1. To provide clinical placements for trainee clinical and/or counselling psychologists, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.
2. To provide post-qualification training (CPD) and clinical professional supervision to recently qualified clinical and/or counselling psychologists attached to the team.
3. To provide advice, consultation and training and clinical supervision to other members of the team for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve clients functioning.
4. To provide pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or counselling psychology as appropriate.
5. To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and post-graduate training and clinical supervision.
6. 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 participate as a senior clinician in the development of a high quality . click apply for full job details