Clinical Psychologist

Job description

Job responsibilities

To possess and practice a high level of communication and relationship skills in situations where emotional distress and risk of self-harm and of life threatening behaviour can be expected.

To deal effectively with highly distressing service user and family situations (e.g. family breakdown, abuse, verbal aggression, challenging behaviour) and to support other staff in their responses to such situations (e.g. through supervision, consultation, debriefing).

To communicate with staff in health, social care, and the voluntary sector in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, complex and sensitive information concerning the assessment, formulation and intervention plans for people who are under our care.

To provide support and guidance in the application of psychological principles and techniques and to foster reflective practice at an individual and group level.

Responsible for providing a specialist psychological service to people in later life presenting with complex physical health problems, psychological disorders and behavioural difficulties.

To use theoretical and practical knowledge to perform specialist psychological, psychometric assessments which require specialist analytic and interpretive skills.

To draw on multiple sources and a range of theoretical psychological models and knowledge to develop formulations that guides the development of clinical interventions and care plans at an individual and group level. This includes making skilled evaluations and decisions regarding the psychological management of clients, including the management of risk.

To write psychological reports for service users, referrers and carers detailing the outcome of assessments and interventions and to communicate such complex information in a sensitive manner.

To provide advice and guidance through the process of consultation on psychological aspects of a persons care to the person, colleagues, service providers, paid carers and families.

To manage the referrals to the psychology service from both the memory and mental health community teams.

To contribute to service innovation for older people with mental health problems to best meet the organisations strategy and priorities.

To be responsible for planning and prioritising own workload and for balancing individual responsibilities for service user work with other roles within and outside the teams e.g. clinicalaudit, service development, consultancy and training.

Responsible for formulating and implementing plans for a range of evidence-based psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families, groups and service delivery systems.

Being responsible for the adjustment and refining of psychological formulations, drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses based upon the analysis of each individual case. In addition, to demonstrate awareness of race, culture and diversity issues.

Responsible for providing specialist advice and consultation to other service members on psychological aspects of mental health; including appropriate treatment approaches, complex issues of engaging people with memory difficulties and maintaining change, and working with the wider systems which affect a persons wellbeing (e.g. family, paid carers).

To interpret and contribute to the development of policies and procedures for the provision of psychology and psychological therapy services in later life services.

To contribute to the multi-professional planning, development and marketing of mental health wellbeing services.

To maintain and apply psychometric tests and equipment, and evaluate progress.

To supervise assistant psychologists.

To provide therapy supervision to non-psychology staff providing psychological therapies within the service.

The post holder will be required to compile clinical reports, maintain accurate records using the appropriate IT system and be responsible for any other administrative tasks relating to theirclinical work e.g. clinical audit and reports.

The post holder is responsible for liaising with other team members and health and social care employees, both in verbal and written form in order to co-ordinate effective and appropriate care for later life service users. .

To carry out research activities as and when required, applying knowledge of research methodology and to contribute research knowledge and expertise to the research activities of other disciplines as required by the service.

To take responsibility and develop effective means of auditing and evaluating the outcomes of individual work, team activity and clinics within the service.

The post holder will be involved in identifying and implementing service developments which will enhance the treatment opportunities provided to service users and carers, through consultation and collaboration with managers, team members and locality wide facilities.

The post holder is accountable for their own professional actions, acting within Livewell South West policies and procedures and Professional Practice Guidelines (HCPC).

To work autonomously within clinical professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the governance of psychological practice with the Health and Social Care partnership for later life services.

To provide expert and specialist clinical psychologist expertise and advice guidance and consultation on psychological aspects of client care to colleagues, and, other service providers, and families.

To ensure all clinical care and treatment provided by psychology is carried out under appropriate supervision and leadership.

The post holder will ensure that they maintain their awareness of research findings concerning psychology, later life mental health assessment and therapeutic interventions.

To contribute to the supervision of Trainee Clinical Psychologists on D.Clin Psych Course (Plymouth University).

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Qualified Clinical Psychologist (D.Clin. Psych or equivalent) and registered with the Health and Care Professionals Council (HCPC)

Desirable

• Certification and experience of either: CBT, BAT, ACT, Systemic therapy or Mindfulness based therapies.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of conducting psychological assessments, interventions and evaluations
• Experience of working in a multidisciplinary team
• Experience of team consultation and supervision

Desirable

• Experience of teaching and training others
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts
• Experience of performing and interpreting neuropsychological assessments

Knowledge & Skills

Essential

• Knowledge of Later Life Mental Health services in the NHS, skills and practice of clinical psychology.

Skills Abilities

Essential

• Excellent verbal, non-verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to integrate complex data, make highly skilled evaluations and decisions, and take a long-term perspective
• Organisation and time management skills

Desirable

• Experience of developing effective relationships with other agencies and organisations and working across organisational boundaries within health or social care
• To have well developed reflective practice skills
• Extensive experience of working effectively as part of a team and aiding the development of a team
• Consultation skills

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 UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

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. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

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

Employer details

Employer name

Livewell Southwest

Address

200 Mount Gould Road

Mount Gould

Plymouth

Devon

PL4 7PY

Employer's website

https://www.livewellsouthwest.co.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)