Lead Neuropsychologist in Rehabilitation
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
We are looking to recruit a motivated principal clinical psychologist to join the multidisciplinary inpatient neurorehabilitation team at Willesden Junction. The postholder would be joining a Specialist Clinical Psychologist to deliver the service. This post would suit a psychologist who thrives in the inpatient setting and is looking for a leadership opportunity.
The Neurorehabilitation Psychology service is embedded in a large Clinical Health Psychology service, including specialities in Bariatrics, Burns, HIV & Sexual Health, Intensive Care, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Pain and Staff Psychology. The CHP service has a strong commitment to embedding core values of equality, diversity and inclusion at the core of our work.
We are committed to improving access to services, striving for equity for all. Continuing professional development is actively supported, as well as hosting trainees from the North Thames Doctoral courses.
We especially welcome applications from candidates with the valuable experience of the diverse social and cultural communities the Trust serves, as we are seeking to ensure our psychology staffing has greater diversity and better represents local communities.
The postholder will be supported to develop their career and flourish as a valued member of the psychology staff group. There are also a number of support systems within the Trust including staff peer networks.
Main duties of the job
The postholder will take a lead clinician role, providing management and clinical supervision to B7 psychologist working in the service. The role will be on site, although hybrid models of working could be explored.
The postholder will provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy in the context of a multidisciplinary neurorehabilitation team. The post holder will offer advice and consultation on service users' psychological care.
Clinical responsibilities include provision of highly specialised psychological and neuropsychological assessments and interventions for service users and specialist consultation for rehabilitation staff. The post holder will work autonomously within professional guidelines and be responsible for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the multidisciplinary teams across the above settings.
Leadership responsibilities will be a key component of this post. The post holder will lead on engaging service users to support the development of services offered within the above settings.
The postholder will contribute to enabling other staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create a psychologically safe environment.
The postholder will utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the areas served by the team/service.
The post holder will work as an autonomous professional within BPS and HCPC guidelines and codes of conduct, and Trust policies.
About us
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) is a great place to work for Psychological Professions. We employ a wide range of Psychological Professions. We value the rich, diverse contributions to our services that our great staff make. We offer our Psychological Professions opportunities across a range of clinical services, in the most diverse areas in London.
As a Trust, we are committed to investing in our staff through a range of initiatives, both profession-specific and organisation wide. We have partnered with Bespoke and Contextual Consulting to provide some of the profession specific CPD, alongside additional CPD sessions we commission as part of CNWL CPD programme for Psychological Professions. CNWL also has seven established staff networks supporting a range of individual needs.
The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.
Job responsibilities
Key Responsibilities:
KR 1 Clinical and Client Care
To work as an independent, autonomous principal clinical psychologist, taking full responsibility for their own work.
To work within guidelines of the British Psychological Society, HCPC and Trust policies and procedures of the service to provide a highly specialised Clinical Neuropsychology Service to the Robertson Unit.
To plan, prioritise and be accountable for own caseload, taking responsibility for the provision of highly specialist, complex, psychological and neuropsychological assessment, care and interventions with service users and families referred to the Robertson Unit.
To use highly specialised neuropsychological test equipment in the assessment of complex clinical cases, intact physical and perceptual skills and highly developed manual dexterity will be required.
To give in-depth mental attention while pro-actively engaged with a service user undertaking psychological or neuropsychological assessments and while recording the service users responses and reactions.
To interpret, analyse and integrate highly complex psychological and non-psychological information e.g. regarding developmental history, data gathered from psychological and neuropsychological test equipment, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with service users, family members and others involved in the service users care.
To communicate highly complex, often technical, psychological or neuropsychological assessment findings and recommendations to service users, family members, carers and staff in a clear and empathic manner. This will often require a high degree of sensitivity as situations will frequently be highly emotive.
To formulate the service users problems based on the highly complex information and perspectives gathered during the assessment and drawing on psychological and neuropsychological theory and research.
To develop psychological/neuropsychological interventions based on the formulation and to adapt this according to further review/reformulation.
To plan, coordinate and implement a range of different types of highly specialist therapies/interventions considering theoretical and therapeutic models, the available evidence base, multi-modal assessments and interventions and complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group. These may include cognitive rehabilitation, vocational rehabilitation, cognitive-behavioural, systemic according to the service users problem or circumstances.
To provide timely written assessment and discharge reports for all service users seen and other relevant reports as appropriate.
To collaborate with a variety of different staff e.g. staff working into other inpatient or community-based services, staff from third sector organisations regarding the care and treatment of service users and to provide highly specialist consultation advice to such staff.
Please view the job description for more details on the roles and responsibilities of the post.
Person Specification
Qualifications
* Doctoral level training in clinical psychology that has been accepted by the HCPC for purposes of professional registration.
* Registered with the HCPC as Practitioner Psychologist.
* Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS and HCPC.
* Post-doctoral training in applied clinical neuropsychology and at least partfulfilment of the requirements to obtain the Qualification in Clinical Neuropsychology.
* Training in clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology.
Experience
* Experience of complex methods of psychological assessment and clinical neuropsychological assessment including the theory, evidence base and application of psychological approaches and interventions for people with acquired brain injury, neurological conditions and their relatives.
* Experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist within a multidisciplinary team with adults presenting with acquired brain injury and/or neurological disorders, presenting problems that reflect the whole life span, full range of clinical severity and full range of care settings including inpatient, outpatient, community, and residential care settings
* Experience of working independently as an autonomous clinician, in and accordance with professional, service and Trust policies. Experience of proposing changes to practices/policies with an impact at service level or for the wider organisation
* Experience of developing and facilitating staff teaching and training for psychologists, the wider multidisciplinary service, drawing on multimedia approaches
* Experience of representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care and actively working to promote effective team working. Experience of representing psychology within the wider organisation.
* Experience of professional management/supervision of qualified, trainee or assistant psychologists. (
* Experience of receiving clinical supervision across a range of client needs.
* Experience that supports working with, and addressing issues of, diversity within local communities. This may have been gained through work, research, volunteering and / or lived experience
* Experience of working with adults aged 65 and over.
* Experience of staff recruitment and selection
Knowledge
* Knowledge of psychological assessment and clinical psychometrics. To select and administer specialist psychological assessments, interpreting and integrating complex data that require analysis, interpretation and comparison, drawn from several sources.
* 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).
* Highly-developed knowledge in approaches to consultation provided to multidisciplinary services and other professional/non-professional groups
* Well-developed knowledge of legislation in relation to people with mental health, acquired brain injury and neurological conditions and its implications for clinical practice.
* Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex statistical analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology.
* Well-developed knowledge of the use clinical governance to support and maintain good clinical practice.
* Well-developed knowledge of the needs of individuals from diverse social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds and experience of applying neuropsychological practice within this context.
* Theoretical knowledge of psychopathology and the evidence base for the relevant treatment in neuropsychology.
* Knowledge of psychological assessment and clinical psychometrics.
* Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health issues, child and adult protection, and equalities
* Knowledge and experience of using clinical standards in record keeping and integrity with regards to managing sensitive and/or confidential information shared by service users, close relatives and staff
* High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
* Experience of leading specific projects within a clinical service
* Knowledge of leadership and management skills acquired through additional training.
Skills
* Ability to maintain a high degree of professionalism and cope with highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse or other distressing histories, emotional/behavioural difficulties and disturbances. Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to such situations.
* Ability to demonstrate leadership skills in relation to exercising clinical responsibility for service users psychological care and treatment and for professional actions within the roles of clinical psychologist, keyworker and within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
* Highly-developed skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment and clinical neuropsychological assessment, frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration and in restricted positions for long periods of time
* Highly-developed skills in providing consultation to multidisciplinary teams and other professional/non-professional groups, including promoting the delivery of psychologically informed care.
* Highly-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing. This will include communicating highly technical, complex and clinically sensitive information to service users, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
* Ability to work flexibly and under pressure while delivering high quality work with highly developed skills in planning, organising and prioritising clinical work according to the needs of oneself, others' and unpredictable events, coordinating this with intervention programs implemented by colleagues in the multidisciplinary service
* Ability and confidence to make decisions based on rapidly changing information, considering service users' emotional state and factors contributing to clinical risk.
* Ability to recognise limits of knowledge and experience and when to seek guidance from senior colleagues.
* Ability to demonstrate leadership skills in relation to non-clinical work including service development, development of working practices and policies and conflict within teams.
* Well-developed IT skills including entry and analysis of data gathered for research/service purposes.
* To communicate skilfully and sensitively complex and sensitive information with clients, carers and colleagues overcoming barriers to communication including sensory, and emotional difficulties, cultural differences and hostility to or rejection of information.
* Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
* To plan and schedule assessment and interventions for individual clients and groups and carers, and for meetings such as MDTs CPA and case reviews
* To be skilled in the administration of psychometric and neuropsychological tests, including those that require complex manipulation of test materials.
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.
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
£70,387 to £80,465 a yearpa (pro rata P/T) inc HCAS
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