Job summary
An exciting opportunity has arisen to work as a Clinical/Health Psychologist in our Clinical Health Psychology Department which provides specialist psychological therapy to service users experiencing distress as a consequence of their physical health conditions. Our service provides psychological intervention, consultation, supervision and training across a diverse range of physical health specialisms, working closely with our MDT colleagues.
We are a full team of Clinical and Health Psychologists working as one team to deliver high quality psychological care across a range of physical health conditions across St Helens and Knowsley locality. We also pride ourselves on offering EMDR and receive EMDR Consultant supervision to enable best practice delivery of this service offer. Applicants trained in EMDR are welcomed. EMDR training can be sought as a CPD opportunity for the successful candidate.
There will also be opportunity to utilise complex clinical skills across the specialisms we serve, including stroke services, diabetes, cancer, pain, bariatrics, burns, plastics and other long term physical health conditions, both inpatients and outpatients. This is a great opportunity to exercise breadth in clinical work whilst developing your areas of interest further. We are a forward thinking service and want a dynamic psychologist to help grow, develop and drive the profile of Clinical Health Psychology.
Main duties of the job
* Main duties of this post will include individual and group work with outpatients and inpatients, working with clients with a range of psychological difficulties across the lifespan with long term physical health conditions.
* As a qualified clinician you will take responsibilities over aspects of the service offer to enable development.
* You will also provide clinical supervision for Trainees where placements are available.
* Supervision of MDT staff, teaching and training and consultation are also key opportunities of the role.
* There are opportunities to attend the MDTs of some specialties and to present to support groups and be involved in psychoeducational events.
* You will be involved in audit, evaluation and publishing to promote clinical health psychology for the Trust and beyond.
You will be part of a high performing Clinical Psychology Department with access to psychology colleagues to support, reflect with, maintain your CPD portfolio and receive high quality clinical supervision from. You will work with the broader MDT within your specialisms and be a key member of our MDT teams. You will provide treatment in inpatient settings, outpatient clinics in the department and virtual treatment.
Current UK HCPC Registration is required!
About us
Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 9000 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites.
We strongly believe that the communities we serve should all have access to Five Star Patient Care.
Our Services:
Acute Care
Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.
Primary Care
Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.
Community Services
Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire. Our inpatient unit at Newton Community Hospital is where patients needing acute hospital beds can continue rehabilitation, freeing up space for more unwell patients. We also provide urgent care at our Urgent Treatment Centre located in St Helens town centre.
Specialist Regional Services
We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.
Achievements:
* Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018
* Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
* National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme
Job description
Job responsibilities
KEY DUTIES
* To provide a specialist Clinical Psychology Service within the Clinical Health Psychology Service across all sectors of care, both to inpatients and outpatients.
* To clinically supervise more junior clinicians within the team, including Assistant Psychologists, Psychologists on Trainee placements and Volunteers
* To take responsibility for specific projects to continuously improve service delivery.
* To offer advice, consultation and training on patients psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and to non-professional carers.
* To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the Psychology Departments policies and procedures and to exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the Psychology Service.
* To utilise research skills to contribute to audit, policy and service development and research within the Department of Psychology.
* To take part in complex MDT clinics and to provide specialist supervision to nursing, counselling and other colleagues on psychological aspects of care.
CLINICAL & PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES
* To receive regular clinical supervision from a more senior Clinical Psychologist and attend regular management and professional supervision.
* To provide highly specialist psychological assessments and clinical understanding of patients referred to the Psychology 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 patients, family members and others involved in the patients care.
* To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a patients psychological health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the patients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
* To be responsible for implementing a range of specialist psychological interventions for individuals, couples and families, and groups, adjusting and refining psychological formulations and drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
* To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into consideration both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, couple, family or group.
* To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment, evaluation and discharge of patients.
* To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other health professionals, including medical consultants, clinical nurse specialists, therapists and counsellors, contributing directly to patients formulations, diagnoses and treatment plans.
* To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care for the benefit of all patients seen by the Psychology Service.
* To undertake risk assessment and risk management for patients seen by the Psychology Service.
* To communicate orally and in writing, in a skilled and sensitive manner, to other health professionals, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of patients under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.
* To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care throughout the Trust.
* To develop and maintain professional pathways of care both internally and externally to other care providers, for example, IAPT services.
* To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the Head of Psychology.
* To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in clinical work within the Psychology service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal, and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology, medicine and health psychology.
* To maintain up-to-date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific patient group and psychological health.
* To adhere to the Code of Practice of the British Psychological Society and the Health Professions Council and maintain appropriate professional registration and requirements for continued registration at all times.
ADMINISTRATION RESPONSIBILTIES
* To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society, Health Professions Council and Trust policies and procedures.
* To manage your diary against your agreed job plan, clearly and effectively so that it is accessible to administrators and colleagues within the service, enabling the management of referrals in a timely manner.
TEACHING & TRAINING RESPONSIBILITIES
* To continuously improve with regular CPD in Clinical Health Psychology, over and above the Trust Mandatory training, by reading, searching literature bases, attending workshops and conferences.
* To provide as required professional and specialist skills in clinical supervision and training.
* To contribute to teaching on local clinical psychology training programmes.
* To promote an understanding of the remit of the Psychology Service within the Trust.
LINE MANAGEMENT/SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES
* To advise the Clinical and Professional Service Lead on those aspects of the service(s) and practice where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
* To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the Psychology Services operational policies and services, through the use of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
* To provide as required professional and specialist skills in clinical supervision and training.
* To provide specialist clinical psychological supervision to Assistant Psychologists and other forms of therapist who may contribute to the team as required.
* To provide specialist clinical supervision of individual cases for trainee clinical psychologists.
* To provide specialist clinical psychological supervision and training to other healthcare workers.
* To contribute to teaching on local clinical psychology training programmes.
* To promote an understanding of the remit of the Psychology Service within the Trust.
RESEARCH & AUDIT
* To use theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work, and work with other team members.
* To contribute to project management, including complex audit and service evaluation.
* To support the research initiatives of the Psychology Service to help develop and improve services to patients and their families.
* To generate service specific or treatment specific research and small project ideas for collaboration with local universities.
* To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in clinical work within the Psychology service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal, and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology, medicine and health psychology.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
* Doctoral Degree or equivalent qualification in Clinical, Counselling or Health Psychology
* Full registration with the Health Professions Council
* Eligible for Chartered Status with the British Psychological Society or equivalent body
Desirable
* Formal training in supervision
Knowledge & Experience
Essential
* Experience during or post qualification in a physical health environment
* Experience of research design, methodology, data analysis and interpretation
* Experience of working effectively in an MDT
* Management of patients expressing suicidal ideation or plans
Desirable
* Experience in psychological assessment and intervention within clinical health psychology
* Experience of teaching health professionals
* Experience of providing consultation to health professionals
* Experience of clinical supervision of assistant psychologists, trainee clinical psychologists, other healthcare professionals
Skills
Essential
* Demonstrable skills in the assessment and treatment of patients presenting with a variety of complex problems
* Demonstrable skills in the assessment and treatment of patients presenting with multiple co-morbidities
* Demonstrable skills in the process of analysis, understanding and decision making, as applied to the psychological assessment, planning of intervention, and treatment of complex psychological problems
* Knowledge of psychological theory and therapy as applied to patients presenting with medical and psychological problems
* Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies
* Knowledge of national and local legislation, policies and guidelines (e.g. Data Protection Act, NSF guidelines, NICE guidelines etc.)
* Well-developed skills in effectively communicating complex and sensitive and contentious information, orally and in writing, to individual patients, groups of patients, carers and other professionals
* The ability to access and use relevant scientific databases and literature
* Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology
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.
Certificate of Sponsorship
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the .
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. #J-18808-Ljbffr