Consultant Practitioner Psychologist / Psychological therapist inLondon inLondon PUBLISHED WED 15 JAN 2025

We are seeking a Consultant Psychological Practitioner to lead an innovative project in the roll-out of trauma-informed approaches (TIA) in our adult acute inpatient wards. Many people coming into our inpatient environments have a history of trauma and the experience of being in hospital during a mental health crisis can itself be incredibly traumatic. We are committed to ensuring our wards take a trauma-informed approach to clinical care and to staff support. The successful candidate will lead a small MDT supporting this inpatient work across all 4 South London & The Maudsley boroughs. This lead post will be responsible for developing the strategy for this work in co-production, design and collaboration with stakeholders from the professional MDTs, service users, carers and local community. They will provide supervision and leadership to the wider team who will work with local staff in each borough to build on work already being done and introduce new approaches. The project will support our strategic priorities around anti-racism, building a culture of trust with the communities we serve and providing outstanding mental health care. Our successful candidate will have extensive experience and skills in working with adults receiving care for severe mental health problems and an advanced understanding of the theory and application of trauma-informed approaches. They will have excellent leadership skills in engaging and working with large groups of diverse stakeholders.

This role will lead on strategy, stakeholder engagement and implementation of the roll-out of trauma-informed approaches and the further development of a trauma-informed culture across our adult acute inpatient wards. The post-holder will lead, manage, and plan the delivery of a highly specialist consultation service providing expert clinical input and guidance around TIA. They will lead a small, centrally-based MDT which will in-reach to the teams in each of borough's acute wards augmenting the TIA work being done and supporting the further development of TIA and culture. This post-holder will develop and hold the strategy for this work alongside all stake-holders including peer workers, service-users, medical, nursing, therapies, social work and psychological professions leads. The strategy will draw on and reflect guidance, research and best practice around trauma-informed approaches across the UK. The post-holder will work closely with leads for the Patient and Carer Race Equity Framework (PCREF) across the boroughs to ensure the strategy encompasses our commitment to anti-racism. We are happy to talk flexible working at the interview stage. In this role you will be able to work your 15 hours flexibly Monday to Friday giving you the very best of good work life balance.

About us

Key Responsibilities:

Clinical and Client Care:

To plan, organise and ensure the delivery psychological services including consultation and supervision in acute inpatient wards, to plan and deliver strategy around the implementation of trauma-informed approaches in inpatients wards.

To plan and organise the integrated delivery of psychological services with other agencies and service providers and ensure co-ordination of psychological therapy with other services.

To provide appropriate highly specialist psychological therapy assessments, formulations and interventions for clients with severe mental illness in an inpatient setting.

To provide culturally appropriate trauma-informed psychological therapy interventions with carers or families and with staff when required.

To assess and monitor risk and draw up appropriate risk management plans

To ensure that all services provided are acceptable and accessible to the diverse communities which make up the boroughs served by the inpatient wards.

Responsibilities for team or service clinical functioning:

To devise and communicate a trauma-informed strategy for work on the ward in conjunction with the ward MDT.

To coordinate, supervise and oversee the work of the trauma-informed approaches team and to devise and communicate strategy within the team and to external stakeholders.

To work closely with the leads for Acute and Crisis Psychology & Psychotherapy (8Cs), leads for nursing, medical and AHPs and the ward MDT to devise and communicate a strategy for the implementation of TIA across all adult acute wards at Slam.

To co-ordinate (and chair) team and service meetings to ensure effective functioning and review when appropriate.

To ensure the effective working of the team or service and a psychologically informed framework for the service.

To take a lead in ensuring the team or services ability to deliver accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities.

To be proactive in challenging discrimination and support the development of culturally competent services.

To advise other members of the service on specialist psychological care of clients.

To liaise with all stakeholders including staff, patients, families and carers and the wider community in developing a trauma-informed strategy for the wards.

To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in this work.

Policy and service development:

To interpret policies and guidance for application in the service and be responsible for policy development and implementation. To ensure that trauma-informed care is incorporated into policy across inpatient settings.

To initiate, implement and ensure appropriate service developments to improve the quality and delivery of services in the service and in partner services.

To ensure the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and delivering services which meet the needs of local communities.

To participate in, or lead when appropriate, Trust and Directorate strategic development and implementation of new initiatives (e.g. national guidelines), through membership of committees and/or working parties.

To be responsible for applying clinical governance standards within the service and ensure that these are maintained and improved.

To take a lead role in ensuring that services to clients are of a high quality and are managed efficiently, according to the overall requirements of the Trust, NHS and government guidance and standards.

Care or management of resources:

To be responsible for the management of psychological resources.

To ensure that the service has sufficient materials and equipment.

To ensure adequate confidential and safe storage for artefacts produced during the therapy process in line with professional guidelines.

To be responsible for obtaining, storing and maintaining all necessary materials and equipment for the provision of therapy in work setting within budgetary constraints.

To ensure that the post-holder has sufficient resources by estimating future needs and requesting or ordering supplies as needed.

Management and supervision:

To provide leadership to psychological practitioners and other professionals in the TIA team and within the ward MDT.

To ensure appropriate systems are in place for the clinical and professional supervision of psychological practitioners and other relevant staff in the TIA team.

To lead recruitment of psychological practitioners.

To lead appraisals of, and personal development plans for psychological practitioners in the service.

To be responsible for the management of psychological practitioners and other relevant staff in the service.

To provide professional, clinical and management supervision to less senior psychological practitioners, assistants and trainees and the psychological work of other professions as appropriate and having completed the relevant training.

Teaching and Training:

To organise access to and provide specialist clinical placements for trainee applied psychological practitioners.

To plan a training strategy for the implementation of trauma-informed approaches across acute inpatient wards.

To be responsible for planning, organising, and the delivery of teaching and training of pre and post- qualification psychological practitioners and specialist training to other professions.

To contribute to the development of the knowledge and skills base within the service by maintaining an active awareness of current developments in trauma-informed care, psychological therapy and by implementing knowledge gained in practice.

To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles.

Record-keeping and Information Governance:

To ensure that all information generated by own work is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.

To ensure the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry, in those parts of the service for which the post-holder has management or leadership responsibility.

Research and development:

To plan and oversee the evaluation of the TIA project including communication and dissemination of learning both within and external to the trust.

To ensure the planning, initiation and completion of research, service evaluation and audits relevant to the service and the directorate research agenda.

To initiate and implement the development of outcome measurement and assessment and assist other staff in the implementation of same.

Maintaining professional standards and continuing professional development:

To receive regular clinical and professional supervision from a more senior psychological practitioner according to professional and Trust guidelines.

To maintain own Continuing Professional Development in line with registered body and Trust Personal Development Plan requirements and the Standards for Continuing Professional Development.

To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of current developments in professional and clinical practice and of relevant legislation and policies and particularly as relevant to TIA.

To comply with the registered body Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics/Standards of Proficiency.

To ensure that all psychological practitioners for whom the post-holder has leadership or management responsibility, maintain professional standards and continuing professional development.

General:

To travel to ward and community settings as appropriate and across the Trust when required.

To be aware of risk relating to aggressive and challenging behaviour amongst the client group, and follow trust policies relating to its management.

To respond appropriately and professionally to emotionally distressing situations and to support others involved in such situations.

To work flexibly which may include offering some occasional commitment to meeting with ward staff outside of 9-5 working hours within the overall Job Plan.

To work closely with Corporate Psychology and Psychotherapy to ensure consistent and timely delivery of staff support within their area across all disciplines. Contributing to the development of the staff support offer in line with relevant quality improvement projects.