The post is responsible for the provision of highly specialist psychological input to the Adults Community Eating Disorders Service in Bedfordshire and Luton which works with people with severe and complex eating disorders.
The post holder will be an experienced clinical or counselling psychologist with substantial knowledge in the field of eating disorders and will directly provide psychological assessments, formulations, and therapies to service users and their families and friends and develop treatment plans. The post holder will consult to other members of the eating disorder service and other statutory and third sector organisations involved in service user care.
The post holder will be involved in supporting service users and facilitating continuity of care before and following inpatient admissions and after transition from CAMH. In addition, the post holder will undertake service development initiatives, audit, and research. The post holder will work autonomously within professional guidelines.
The post holder will clinically supervise the work of less senior members of the team including assistant psychologists, trainee psychologists, psychologists, and contribute to the line management of team colleagues.
The post holder will formulate and undertake clinical audit, service evaluation, service development, and research activities as agreed with the Principal Psychologist, Clinical Lead, and senior management.
Main duties of the job
Job responsibilities
Patient Care
* Provide highly specialist psychological assessments, based on the appropriate use, interpretation, and integration of complex data from a variety of sources (including psychological tests, measures/rating scales, direct and indirect observation, and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members, and involved others).
* Formulate and implement plans for formal psychological treatment and/or management of an eating disorder in adults based upon a broad theoretical knowledge of evidence of efficacy and within NICE guidelines for treatment of eating disorders, to analyse, interpret, and compare complex information in order to design specialist programmes of treatment for individuals, groups, and families tailored to individual need.
* Provide expertise and specialist psychological advice, guidance, and consultation to other multidisciplinary professionals contributing directly to service users' formulation, diagnosis, and treatment planning.
* Implement a broad range of evidence-based specialist psychological treatments which require the formulation and modification of plans and strategies as practice and experience demands. This will require the adjustment and refinement of complex formulations which draw on different explanatory models, and the maintenance of a number of provisional hypotheses.
* 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 service user.
* Exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment, and discharge of clients.
* Undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual service users and communicate with other professions on psychological and eating disorder-related aspects of risk assessment and management.
Clinical
* Ensure that multidisciplinary colleagues have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding the care of service users.
* Provide and receive highly complex, sensitive, distressing, and emotional information in relation to health issues where there are often barriers to acceptance.
* Record, monitor, and report on clinical work and communicate complex clinical information to a variety of recipients, e.g. service users, families and carers, other professionals, formal panels, and statutory and voluntary organisations, orally, in writing, and/or electronically.
* Participate in service journal club and CPD activities.
* Contribute to the Eating Disorders MDT teaching when it is offered to other professionals within the county and as part of the East of England Provider Collaborative.
* Work closely with the Principal Psychologist and Clinical Lead to implement the Trust's Quality Improvement methodology to continually improve the team and service offer and quality, and the partnership work with other multiagency colleagues and stakeholders.
* Ensure that the BPS Guidelines for professional practice are followed appropriately.
Administration
* Share in the team responsibility for screening appropriateness of incoming referrals to the Community Eating Disorders Service.
* Maintain clear written records of all work carried out in multidisciplinary files following ELFT records management and record keeping guidelines. Maintain high standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording and report writing and responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of conduct and practice of the BPS and Trust policies and procedures.
* Provide accurate and timely clinical information as required and input into Trust electronic record systems.
* Use information technology in line with Trust and NHS information governance requirements, and maintain up-to-date knowledge of systems and governance requirements.
* Collate and report on information across service areas using information systems to a high standard.
* Prepare teaching materials and presentations to a professional level.
* Be responsible for own reports, using IT skills.
* Maintain CPD records and create databases as required.
Management
* Clinically supervise the work of less senior members of the team including qualified and unqualified psychologists as required, ensuring realistic and effective job plans are in place.
* Work closely with the Principal Psychologist and Clinical Lead to provide post-qualification training (CPD) and clinical professional supervision to qualified psychologists attached to the team.
* Provide clinical supervision to trainees on placement.
* Provide line management support and supervision to all direct reports.
* Participate as appropriate in staff recruitment both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistants, trainees, and qualified psychologists/psychological practitioners and other staff within the service.
Human Resources
* Participate in the planning and development of a high quality, responsive and accessible Community Eating Disorder Service in Bedfordshire and Luton including advising both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
* Work in a coordinated and co-operative way with other psychologists employed within local services and the wider psychology services in the Trust. This will involve participation in the effective development and organisation of the Trust's Psychology Services by attendance at meetings as required.
* Regularly liaise with the Principal Psychologist, Clinical Lead, and Operational Manager regarding the functioning of the Psychologists in relation to meeting the service's needs, targets, and standards and addressing service changes.
* Agree work/caseload levels with line manager and professional lead, and manage own workload to meet expected activity levels.
* Receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior Clinical Psychologist in the team in accordance with good practice and in line with professional practice guidelines and HCPC registration requirements and participate in appraisal and development planning, identifying and agreeing training needs.
Performance and Quality
* Keep abreast of developments in psychology for clients who experience eating disorders and complex mental health needs.
* Maintain up-to-date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client groups and mental health.
* Use highly specialist theoretical knowledge base and clinical skills to deliver specialist consultation, training, and (where agreed) clinical supervision to other multidisciplinary professionals for their provision of psychologically-based interventions for service users.
* Work closely with the Principal Psychologist to provide specialist placements for trainee psychologists and other psychological therapists in training, ensuring they are provided with necessary clinical and research/evaluation skills and experience to develop competent practice, and contributing to the assessment and evaluation of those competencies.
* Develop working relationships with relevant statutory, voluntary, and community groups and organisations and provide advice, consultation, and training to staff working with the service user group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.
* Comply with governance systems in place for the provision and monitoring of clinical and professional supervision of less senior qualified and unqualified psychological practitioners across the directorate.
* Work closely with the Principal Psychologist and Clinical Lead to develop and deliver, jointly with other psychologists where necessary, teaching events for clinical psychology Doctoral training programmes.
* Ensure the development, maintenance, and development of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes.
* Be mindful of the needs of individuals and families from a wide range of racial, cultural, sexual, religious, and social backgrounds and develop with colleagues innovative ways of communicating and working across language and cultural barriers.
* Develop and maintain knowledge of local resources and develop working relationships with relevant statutory, voluntary, and community groups and organisations.
* Support service development and quality improvement initiatives within the service and directorate, in line with directorate priorities and in response to identified local need.
* Attend regular service meetings to develop and maintain high standards of professional knowledge and practice in services.
* Attend multidisciplinary team meetings related to service governance and development as required.
* Contribute to service development projects taking a lead in some agreed areas with delegated responsibility (service reviews, QI, People Participation, research, etc.).
* Support systems for evaluation, monitoring, and development of the directorate's psychological services to ensure services are delivered in line with Trust policies, national guidance, and evidence-based practice.
* Support and contribute to service-related and/or academic research within the team.
Person Specification
Education/ Qualification/ Training
Essential
* Doctorate in Clinical/Counselling Psychology or equivalence and able to demonstrate eligibility for BPS CPsychol (Chartered Psychologist). HCPC registration as a Practitioner Psychologist.
* Evidence of continuing professional development relevant to the specialty as required by professional accrediting/registration body (e.g. BPS/ HCPC/ BABCP/ ACAT).
* Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design, and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
Desirable
* Further training or qualifications in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice relevant to the post, e.g. supervision, therapeutic models used in eating disorder, etc.
* Qualification in Leadership and Management.
Experience
Essential
* Substantial experience of specialist assessment, formulation, and treatment of clients experiencing eating disorders.
* Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the range of care settings, 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 in working in multidisciplinary teams.
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