Senior Clinical Psychologist

Job summary
This is a Band 7 - Band 8a Development Post. The role would suit an experienced clinical psychologist or a newly qualified psychologist who is keen to develop their skills within older adults through a preceptorship within a supportive team. An exciting opportunity has arisen for a clinical psychologist with experience and enthusiasm in working with older people, to join the friendly and supportive Older Adult Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) for Preston, Chorley and South Ribble. You will have an interesting and varied role from running therapeutic groups to formulating complex case presentations.

Main duties of the job

• To provide a qualified Clinical Psychology Service to patients of the nominated team(s) including the provision of enhanced specialist psychological assessment and therapy, working within the policies, procedures and protocols applicable to the service.
• To offer advice and consultation on patients' psychological care to psychology and non-psychology colleagues and to other, non-professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the service's policies and procedures. To develop advanced skills in consultancy by implementing formal systems of consultancy within the nominated team(s), as directed and guided by your Locality Professional Lead and his/her deputies.
• To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area in which the postholder works.

About us
LSCFT values diversity and inclusion, recognising that talent from varied backgrounds creates a flexible, creative, and effective workforce. We actively challenge discrimination and welcome applications from all, regardless of age, disability (including those with experience of accessing or caring for someone who has accessed mental health or learning disability services), ethnicity, gender, religion, belief, or sexual orientation. Our aim is to reflect the communities we serve, so we particularly encourage applications from under-represented groups. If you'd like to discuss your application, please ask. We also welcome individuals with lived experience relevant to the role or service area, as your insight brings authenticity to our services. LSCFT support flexible working, we believe that a positive work/life balance benefits NHS employees through improved health and wellbeing. We would consider working patterns such as term time, part time, compressed hours and flexi-time. The wellbeing of our people is at the heart of everything we do. We offer a wide range of resources, tools and support to help you thrive both in and out of work.

Person Specification
Education/ Qualifications
Essential

• Doctorate in Clinical Psychology or equivalent for those who trained prior to 1996, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS.

Knowledge
Essential

• An increased level of knowledge relevant to this post equivalent to a post-graduate diploma (in addition to entry level qualification).
• 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 BPS by completion of CPD log demonstrating a minimum of 40 hours per year.
• Knowledge of legislation relevant to the patient group.

Experience
Essential

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of patients across a range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
• 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.
• Demonstrable evidence of a continuing commitment to developing expertise in psychological assessment and intervention.
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for patient's psychological care and both as a professionally qualified care co-ordinator and also within the context of multidisciplinary care plan.

Personal
Essential

• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• 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.
• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Well developed skills in communicating effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists.
• Ability to sustain intense levels of concentration responding and participating as required.

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. Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).