Job Title: Principal Clinical Psychologist

Band:        8b

Locality:  North West Regional Spinal Injuries Centre (NWRSIC), Southport General Hospital

Service: Spinal Cord Injuries (SCI) Psychology Service

Base:      Southport General Hospital

AfC Ref: 409-S6848420

Hours of work: 0.8 WTE

Reporting Arrangements:

Managerially accountable to:     Spinal Consultant Clinical Psychologist

Professionally accountable to: Head of Psychology, Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals (MWL) and Spinal Consultant Clinical Psychologist

         

About the NWRSIC

This is an exciting opportunity to be a deputy Clinical Lead as part of a brand new psychology team developed for the North West Regional Spinal Injuries Centre (NWSIC).  You will work clinically onto the inpatient ward, have opportunity to support outreach work and work with spinal MDT colleagues to increase the psychological mindedness of the whole service.  You will clinically supervise psychology colleagues and support the Consultant Clinical Psychologist in leading and driving psychology in spinal injuries. You will be part of a broader network of multi-specialist Psychologists across MWL who pride themselves on being high quality and dynamic.   

Southport is a lovely place to live and work.  A seaside town with thriving businesses and a great welcoming and friendly culture. 

Our psychology workforce are all trained in EMDR and the successful candidate will be offered the opportunity to be trained in EMDR too.

We also pride ourselves on offering EMDR and being supervised by an EMDR Consultant to enable development of this service.  Applicants trained in EMDR are welcomed.  EMDR training can be sought as a CPD opportunity for the successful candidate.

Job Summary

The Principal Clinical Psychologist will be responsible for further development and provision of the clinical psychology service within the NWRSIC at Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.  The post holder will provide specialist assessment, treatment and consultancy services for individuals with spinal injuries and their families. The range of care provided embraces both that related to complex specialist care, as well as that related to generic care needs.  The post holder will also provide a service in the areas of teaching and training, consultancy and staff support, and research and evaluation.  Multidisciplinary care is achieved through liaising closely with other disciplines both within and outside the hospital.

Duties:

• To provide a highly specialist clinical psychology service to inpatients within the NWRSIC, across the acute and rehabilitation wards with some outreach where clinically indicated.
• To deliver and supervise highly specialist psychological assessment and treatment to adult inpatients at the NWRSIC, on an individual and group basis.
• To provide advice and consultation regarding inpatients’ psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues.
• To provide consultation to the NWRSIC outreach service regarding admission of inpatients with complex psychological / psychiatric needs
• To contribute to the strategic planning of clinical psychology services within the NWRSIC, with the aim of maintain high levels of psychosocial care for patients
• To represent Clinical Psychology in the NWRSIC’s wider organisational and national forums. 
• To lead the planning, development and delivery of the Department’s teaching and training commitments.

Key Relationships

Key relationships include: Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Directorate Manager, Head of Psychology, , specialism multi-disciplinary teams across Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

 

Spinal Department Structure

8c – Consultant Clinical Psychologist

8b – Principal Clinical Psychologist

8a – Senior Clinical Psychologists

6- Counsellor

Trust Psychology Clinical Health Psychology Network:

8d – Head of Psychology, Consultant Clinical Psychologist

X1 8c – Spinal Service Lead, Consultant Clinical Psychologist

X2 8bs – Deputy Clinical Health Psychology Service Leads and Principal Clinical Psychologists

X3 8as – Senior Clinical Psychologists

X2 8as - Senior Health Psychologists

X1 7 – Clinical Psychologist

X1 – Trainee Health Psychologist

Key Responsibilities

Patient/Client Care

1. To apply a combination of specialist clinical skills derived from experience and further learning via CPD across the clinical spectrum of assessment, intervention and evaluation.
2. To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the NWRSIC 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 client’s care.  
3. To offer clinical services and direct clinical contact in a variety of settings in both inpatients and outpatients, both in person and virtually.  
4. To formulate and implement complex plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.  
5. To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions (therapy) for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams, whilst adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.  
6. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account their physical health presentation, both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual or group.  
7. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.  
8. To provide specialist, highly complex psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.  
9. To communicate highly complex and highly emotive information to adults, their families and carers.  
10. To ensure that all member of the treating team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients and provide advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.  
11. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.  
12. To communicate, in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both unidisciplinary and multidisciplinary care.  
13. To provide expertise, advice, and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team.

 

Responsibilities for Supervision, Consultation, Teaching and Training

1. To co-ordinate, in conjunction with the relevant manager, the effective supervision of psychological practice within the designated service.
2. To provide clinical placements for trainee clinical and/or counselling psychologists ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competences and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care, and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.  
3. To provide post qualification training, clinical and professional supervision to other qualified applied psychologists attached to the team, where appropriate.  
4. To provide clinical supervision to Clinical and other Practitioner Psychologists within the Clinical Psychology Department.  
5. To provide advice, consultation, training and clinical supervision to other members of the MDT for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve clients functioning.  
6. To organise, co-ordinate and provide agreed post qualification teaching.  
7. To continue to develop skills in the area of professional pre and post graduate training under clinical supervision.  
8. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.  
9. In common with all Clinical Psychologists, to receive regular clinical and professional supervision from an appropriately experienced/ more senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues. 

 

Responsibilities for Policy and Service Development

1. To participate as a senior clinician in the development of high quality, responsive and accessible services including advising both operational and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
2. To exercise responsibility for co-ordinating psychological resources available to the team in the form of additional qualified and unqualified graduate psychology staff or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of service users.  
3. To exercise in collaboration with the relevant manager, responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the nominated service or team.  
4. To initiate and implement, in conjunction with relevant managers, service developments and projects within the sector/service.  
5. To be responsible for developing policies and procedures related to psychological care pathways within the service.  
6. To take a deputised clinical and professional lead as senior clinician, in the evaluation, monitoring and development of the team’s operational policies, through the deployment of professional skill and research, service evaluation and audit, and ensuring incorporation of psychological frameworks for understanding and provision of high quality multi-disciplinary care.  

 

Responsibilities for Finance

1. To be an authorised signatory for expense sheets and psychological resources, as agreed with the nominated manager.

 

Responsibility for Human Resources

1. To take on as appropriate to a Deputy Clinical Lead role, management/supervisory responsibilities of psychology staff.
2. To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistants, trainees and qualified clinical psychologists/ psychological practitioners and other staff within the designated service area.

 

Responsibility for Information Resources

1. To provide monthly clinical activity data and contribute to discussions about service wide activity.
2. To provide appropriate statistical returns as required.
3. To report on KPIs to operational leads and commissioning bodies.

 

Research and Development

1. To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
2. To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.  
3. To initiate and implement project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve service provision.  

General

1. To utilise sufficient neuropsychological knowledge and/or qualifications to inform direct and indirect psychological work, to support service users in the spinal injuries.
2. To utilise highly developed assessment, formulation and therapeutic skills to deliver a high quality clinical psychology service into NWRSIC and related services.  
3. To work in line with, and contribute to ensuring the development, maintenance, and dissemination of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes.  
4. To ensure the development and articulation of best practice in psychology within the service and contribute across the service by exercising 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 and related disciplines.  
5. To ensure 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 and Trust policies and procedures.  
6. To contribute with other senior professional colleagues and network/locality professional lead for psychology services to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the network.  
7. To ensure that all psychologists within the service/sector maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group and mental health.  

 

Freedom to Act

The post holder is expected to comply with all relevant Trust policies, procedures, and guidelines, including those relating to Equal Opportunities, Health and Safety and Confidentiality of Information.