Clinical Associate in Psychology | East London NHS Foundation Trust

Posting date:	25 April 2025
Hours:	Full time
Closing date:	15 June 2025
Location:	Luton, LU4 0DZ
Company:	East London NHS Foundation Trust
Job type:	Permanent
Job reference:	6982157/363-CHB6982157

Summary

This is an exciting opportunity for a qualified Clinical Associate Psychologist (CAP), who is keen to take on the challenges of working in a new, diverse and varied service. The post holder will work under the umbrella of the clinical health psychology service, covering specialties of obesity, pain management, limb reconstruction, general medicine and HIV. The post holder will be employed by ELFT, managed and supervised by the ELFT Clinical Health Psychology Lead but will hold an honorary contract with Bedfordshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Candidates should have an interest in working with people experiencing emotional stress and mental health difficulties while experiencing significant physical health conditions who are from a range of religious, cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The post-holder will work closely with other Psychologists and multi-disciplinary professionals, and supervision will be provided by a qualified Psychologist.

The successful candidate will be part of a vibrant multi-disciplinary team operating in a wide range of clinics at the Luton and Dunstable University Hospital. Alongside other Health Psychology staff the post-holder will provide psychoeducation, assessment and empirically-informed therapy in-person and virtually to service users, including approaches such as group stress management, ACT and CBT. In collaboration with more senior staff, the successful candidate will contribute to staff training and provide psychological advice (informal,ad hoc, and formal consultation) to other staff, support family members and liaise with primary and secondary care providers and various other statutory and non-statutory agencies involved in service users’ care.

The post-holder will be offered a range of opportunities for post-qualification training. The role offers excellent opportunities for developing skills in service-development and co-production.

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.
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• Provide psychological assessments of service users of the locality service. This is to be based on the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of psychological data from a variety of quantitative and qualitative sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and assessments with service users and others involved in their care.
• Be responsible for the formulation and implementation of psychological treatment and/or management of service users’ mental health problems, based on an appropriate level of skills and knowledge.
• To operate as an integrated member of the team, placing the patient at the centre of service planning and delivery.
• To bring a psychological perspective to the work of the team.
• To develop and support the psychosocial work of other staff through teaching, training supervision and consultation
• Evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical, development and cultural processes and systems which have shaped the individual, family or group.
• Be responsible for providing and receiving highly complex, sensitive, distressing and emotional information in relation to mental and physical health issues, where there are often difficulties in terms of acceptance or understanding.
• Communicate across language and cultural barriers, including working for sustained periods of time by communicating with service users, carers or groups through professional interpreters or advocates
• Be responsible for recording, monitoring and reporting on clinical work and communicating, in a skilled and sensitive manner, complex clinical information (including assessment, formulation, treatment plans and progress) to a variety of recipients (e.g. service users, carers, other professionals, formal panels, statutory and voluntary organisations) orally, in writing and electronically.
• Undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual service users as appropriate.

Indirect
• Provide specialist psychological advice, supervision, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to the formulation and treatment plans of individual service users; including advice on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management and in the use of objective/standardised measures.
• Employ a broad theoretical knowledge of psychology and specialist clinical skills to develop and support the psychological skills of others (including assistant, and trainee psychologists, CAPiTs and members of other staff groups) through the development and delivery of teaching, training and supervision programmes.
• Ensure that all members of the multidisciplinary team have access to a psychologically-based framework for the understanding and care of service users referred to the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory. This includes ensuring that a psychological perspective is provided in a wide range of settings where service user care is discussed, planned and organised.
• Be responsible for proposing innovative responses to identified community & clinic needs and developing these in consultation with senior colleagues.
• Develop and deliver, jointly with more experienced psychologists where necessary, teaching events for clinical/counselling psychology Doctoral training programmes
• Maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre - and post- qualification teaching, training and clinical supervision.
• Ensure the development, maintenance and dissemination of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes.
• In common with all clinical/counselling psychologists, receive regular clinical supervision from an appropriately qualified clinician, in accordance professional registration requirements.
• 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 and professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical/counselling psychology and related disciplines, for example attendance at psychology discipline meetings and BPS Special Interest groups as appropriate.


This advert closes on Sunday 25 May 2025