Principal Clinical Psychologist (XR09) inLeeds inLeeds PUBLISHED 8 NOV 2024

We are excited to advertise an opportunity for a Principal Clinical or Counselling Psychologist to oversee the development and delivery of a brand-new project. The role will deliver a collective systemic intervention to improve the provision of psychological care to people requiring cardiac rehabilitation across the West Yorkshire system. This post requires someone who is interested in developing services to reduce health inequalities for marginalised groups who typically miss out on cardiac rehabilitation and the psychological benefits of this.

We are looking for someone who can work with complex systems as well as deliver a time-limited psychologically based systemic intervention, evaluate its impact and feedback learning from the project to relevant stakeholders.

This would be an excellent opportunity for any current 8as who might be wanting to progress and develop leadership and service development skills. We could support secondment opportunities.

The role will involve developing excellent working relationships with the leads from the cardiac rehab services to appraise the psychological needs of the patient groups, developing strong links with local talking therapies services and furthering good knowledge of the local offers of tier four services offered by the acute hospital trusts in the region. Besides excellent communication skills, the post-holder will be capable of drawing together a range of location-based offers, alongside three Assistant Psychologists who will deliver the project. You will have responsibility for supporting these staff to develop self-help resources aimed at improving patients psychological well-being and supporting cardiac rehabilitation staff to increase their knowledge of screening or signposting individuals to the correct place to receive the right psychological support.

About us

JOB PURPOSE

To provide a qualified specialist clinical or counselling psychology service to patients who are seen within the designated clinical speciality/area, across all sites and sectors of care by:

a) Providing specialist psychological assessments and therapy

b) Offering advice and consultation on patients psychological and neuropsychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and to other non-professional carers

c) Developing, supporting and maintaining effective working relationships with other disciplines within the service areas, including attending Team meetings

d) Using research skills for audit, policy and service development and leading on research projects within the area served by the team/service

e) Proposing and implementing policy changes within the specialist area served

f) Line managing Early Career and Senior Clinical or Counselling Psychologists in the discrete clinical speciality that the post covers and making a contribution to the general management, governance and supervision of the clinical/counselling psychology service as agreed

g) Working autonomously in the delivery of these duties within professional guidelines, the evidence-based literature and the overall framework of the Team, Department of Clinical & Health Psychology and Trust policies and procedures.

3. JOB DIMENSIONS

National KSF profile

Core:

Develop and maintain communication with people on complex matters, issues and ideas and/or in complex situations

Develop oneself and contribute to the development of others

Monitor and maintain health, safety and security of self and others

Contribute to the improvement of services

Contribute to improving quality

Promote equality and value diversity.

Health and wellbeing:

Plan, develop and implement approaches to promote health and wellbeing and prevent adverse effects on health and wellbeing

Assess complex health and wellbeing needs and develop, monitor and review care plans to meet those needs

Contribute to protecting people at risk

Assess physiological and psychological functioning when there are complex and/or undifferentiated abnormalities, diseases and disorders and develop, monitor and review related treatment plans

Plan, deliver and evaluate interventions and/or treatments when there are complex issues and/or serious illness.

General:

Plan, deliver and review interventions to enable people to learn and develop

Test and review new concepts, models, methods, practices, products and equipment

Prioritise and manage the ongoing work of services and/or projects

Plan, allocate and supervise the work of a team.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

Qualifications

Essential:

Post graduate doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology, including specific models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology, as accredited by the British Psychological Society.

Desirable:

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

Training

Essential:

Further training in a specialised area of clinical practice through formal post- doctoral training (diploma or equivalent).

or

a combination of specialist short courses together with an evidenced portfolio of supervised practice based learning in a specialist area of clinical practice as assessed by an experienced clinical supervisor to be of equivalent level to a postgraduate diploma

Completion of formal clinical supervisor training sufficient to be able to supervise doctoral trainees

Registration as a Clinical Psychologist with Health and Care Professions Council (or other domain title as agreed).

Desirable:

Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.

Special knowledge including experience

Essential:

Assessed significant experience and competencies from working as a qualified clinical or counselling psychologist including significant post-qualification experience within the designated specialty where the post is located

Experience of working with a wide variety of patient 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 specialist psychological assessment and treatment of patients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.

Desirable:

Qualified experience of working with multi-disciplinary teams and supervising healthcare staff

Experience of working with adults with the health condition(s) covered by the designated clinical speciality/area

Experience of working in medical multi-disciplinary teams and offering systemic interpretations to have an impact on the team functioning in patient care

Knowledge of specialist therapy models (e.g., Acceptance and Commitment Therapy [ACT], Compassion Focused Therapy [CFT] and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing [EMDR]) and their application with people with physical health conditions

Experience of representing psychology in meetings with service planners/commissioners to plan the patient pathway across community and acute services.

Behaviours:

Essential:

Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care co-ordinator (or equivalent in a physical healthcare setting) and also within the context of a multi-disciplinary care plan

Experience of teaching, training and provision of professional and clinical supervision

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.

Practical Skills:

Essential:

Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration

Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to patients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS

Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups

Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology

Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).

Desirable:

Highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies for specific difficult to treat groups

Knowledge of legislation in relation to the patient group and mental health.

Other Requirements

Essential:

Able to fulfil Occupational Health requirements for the post (with reasonable adjustments if necessary), including clearance on blood borne viruses in compliance with Trust Policy.

6. THE LEEDS WAY VALUES

Our values are part of what make us different from other trusts, so we see this as a strength as well as a responsibility. They have been developed by our staff and set out what they see as important to how we work. Our five values are:

Patient-centred

Collaborative

Fair

Accountable

Empowered

All our actions and endeavours will be guided and evaluated through these values.

7. CORE BEHAVIOURS AND SKILLS

1. To ensure the development, maintenance and dissemination of the highest professional standards of practice through (a) active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes and (b) the encouragement and facilitation of the active participation of service users in the design, provision and evaluation of clinical services.

2. To ensure the development and articulation of best practice in psychology within the service area and contribute across the service by exercising the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular clinical supervision* and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical or counselling psychology and related disciplines.

3. 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 HCPC, British Psychological Society (BPS) and Trust policies and procedures.

4. To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the 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 or counselling psychology and related disciplines.

5. To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group, mental health, clinical/counselling psychology and health psychology in general.

* Please note that all post holders of clinical psychology posts receive clinical supervision. This is not to be confused with management supervision in AFC terms