Job description

Job responsibilities

To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the service 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.

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients psychological problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy.

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 where appropriate.

To evaluate, monitor progress and make highly skilled evaluations and 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.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients who are open to the Recovery Psychology Service

To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan. Recovery Team.

To ensure that all members of the clinical team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of service users, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, highly complex information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of service users under their care where there may be conflicting views, high emotion and significant barriers to understanding and change, and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multidisciplinary care.

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:

To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.

To continue to gain wider post-qualification experience of clinical psychology over and above that provided within the principal service area where the post holder is employed.

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

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

To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of all relevant staff, as appropriate.

To provide advice, consultation, supervision and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.

Management, recruitment, policy and service development:

To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit, including managing the pathway to clinical psychology within the team.

To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

To be involved in the shortlisting and interviewing of assistant psychologists and other member of staff as appropriate.

The post holder will be expected to make full use of IT packages available within the work area, for example, Microsoft office, email, RIO, internet and statistical packages.

Service Governance:

To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.

To undertake research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research as appropriate.

To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.

To undertake a defined role in Divisional Service Governance structures as agreed.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology accredited by the BPS or its approved equivalent,
• Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council as a Practitioner Psychologist

Desirable

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

Experience

Essential

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment, formulation and treatment of clients across a range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient 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 including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts

Knowledge

Essential

• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health
• Knowledge of IT systems including word processing, email, and local electronic patient information systems

Desirable

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific, difficult to treat groups (e.g., personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of at least one specialised psychological therapy.

Skills

Essential

• Expertise in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, formulation, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Well-developed and effective communication skills, oral and written, to communicate complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers, and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non- professional groups.
• 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 service governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material 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.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Harry Blackman House, Peasley Cross Hospital

Marshalls Cross Road

St Helens

WA9 3DE

United Kingdom

Employer's website

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