Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist | East London NHS Foundation Trust

Dyddiad hysbysebu:	04 Gorffennaf 2025
Cyflog:	Heb ei nodi
Gwybodaeth ychwanegol am y cyflog:	£61,927 - £68,676 Per annum pro rata inc HCA
Oriau:	Rhan Amser
Dyddiad cau:	03 Awst 2025
Lleoliad:	London, E1 4DG
Cwmni:	East London NHS Foundation Trust
Math o swydd:	Cytundeb
Cyfeirnod swydd:	7287391/363-TH7287391

Crynodeb

Psychologists are integral and valued key members of the Mental Health Care of Older People’s multidisciplinary teams (MHCOP) in each borough across East London. Within and across the service, in line with National Guidance, psychologists are responsible and accountable for the provision of high quality, person-centred and culturally sensitive psychological services to older adults presenting to the service, their families and carers. Our goal is to alleviate psychological distress and promote psychological well-being, working alongside our multi-disciplinary team colleagues in the community and liaison into the centralised wards, where required through consultation, teaching and training.

This is an exciting time for Tower Hamlets older adults’ services, with an innovative redesign of our diagnostic memory clinic offer currently underway. The particular focus of this post will be the provision of high-quality, specialist neuropsychological assessment and formulation into our newly redesigned Tower Hamlets memory clinics, working alongside multidisciplinary colleagues to provide a timely and holistic diagnostic service to service users and their families and carers.

The post holder will be an active member of Tower Hamlets Mental Health Care of Older People’s service, with a particular focus on delivering high-quality, specialist neuropsychological assessments and formulation under the Tower Hamlets Memory Clinic.

Key responsibilities of the post include:
• Providing specialist neuropsychological assessment of adults and older adults presenting to TH memory clinic using appropriate methodology and to integrate this information into a neuropsychological formulation.
• Consulting with and provide specialist guidance to significant others including carers and families of service users.
• Offering advice and consultation on psychological and neuropsychological care to members of the interdisciplinary team, other relevant healthcare professionals, carers, and significant others.
• Communicating in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation, and treatment plans of service users under the care of the service and to monitor progress during treatment.
• Attending interdisciplinary team meetings and provide a specialist psychological perspective in the interdisciplinary formulation of appropriate treatment plans.
• Involvement in the training, continuing professional development and supervision of qualified staff, trainee clinical psychologists, assistant psychologists and other healthcare professionals.
• Taking professional responsibility and exercise autonomous judgement regarding clinical professional practice.

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.

Duties and responsibilities of 8A psychologists across MHCOP

Patient Care:
• Be an active member of local borough Mental Health Care of Older Adult’s Team and wider MHCOP psychology/ Arts therapies East London professional group, to support Service Users with complex mental health difficulties and/or organic mental health problems such as dementia.
• Work closely with psychologists and other professionals in the team maintaining a standardised approach to the assessment and care of Service Users with complex needs.
• Be responsible and accountable for the systematic provision of highly specialist psychology service for older adults and their families/ carers.
• To use specialist knowledge and understanding of psychological development to contribute to mental health, neuropsychological and risk assessments in order to plan and implement formulation and evidence based therapeutic interventions that optimise successful ageing and adjustment to later life, as well as aid in the diagnosis and management of dementia, whilst taking into account changes in life situation, physical health and complex social care needs.
• Psychological interventions are to be drawn on a broad theoretical base and be tailored to the specific needs of the Service User. A range of individual, couple, family, and group interventions are provided. Interventions will take into account cultural psychology, working with interpreters and different cultural beliefs.
• Contribute to the provision of a specialist psychological perspective for the work of the team. Provide highly specialist psychological advice and consultation to other members of the team as well as consultation into residential and nursing homes where required.
• Facilitate Case Formulation in teams, where appropriate.
• Clinically supervise and co-ordinate the work of assistant psychologists, trainee psychologists, other psychological therapy staff and non-psychological staff, where appropriate.
• Develop and support the psychological work of other staff groups through teaching, training, clinical supervision and case consultation.
• Contribute to the provision of a highly specialist psychological input to Service Users with severe, complex and enduring mental health and dementia related difficulties across settings, directly and indirectly.
• Take the lead for a specified area for interface work as required e.g. with other borough based services.
• To deputise for the local Lead Psychologist as required.
• Formulate and undertake clinical audit and research activities as appropriate to the role. Be involved in Quality Improvement (QI) initiatives invested in by the Trust as required.
• Participate in CPD and other developmental activities, keeping up to date with relevant psychological research, policy and national guidance (DoH, NICE, etc).
• Develop working partnerships with other members of psychology services locally and across boroughs, relevant statutory and voluntary agencies, locality services and providers/commissioners as appropriate.

Direct Clinical:
• Be responsible for choosing and providing appropriate highly specialist psychological assessments including general mental health, risk and neuropsychological.
• Neuropsychological assessments are carried out to aid in the diagnosis and management of dementias and other neurological conditions through timely pre-assessment, assessment, and diagnosis for people of any age with dementia. Post-diagnostic support is provided to help people to live well with their diagnosis and for their relatives, including helping to make sense of some of the more confusing and distressing symptoms that can arise in dementia and to consider their self-care as they support their relative.
• Employ a broad theoretical knowledge base to analyse, interpret and compare complex information in order to develop a highly specialist understanding of people’s difficulties and needs and to design psychological treatments and interventions tailored to individual need.
• Be responsible for direct delivery of a broad range of specialist psychological interventions and treatments, and be able to modify and amend these as required and as practice and experience demands.
• Be responsible for providing and receiving highly complex, sensitive, distressing and emotional information in relation to mental health issues, where there may be barriers to acceptance.
• Spend sustained amounts of time with service users who may be aggressive and hostile, who may have poor communication skills and self-care and special physical and/or mental health needs.
• Communicate across language and cultural barriers using interpreters where indicated.
• Be responsible for recording, monitoring and reporting on clinical work and communicating complex clinical information to a variety of recipients, e.g. service users, families and carers, other professionals and other statutory and voluntary organisations, orally, in writing and/or electronically, and as specified by the service.
• Take into account the particular needs of people from minority ethnic groups and adapt assessment, formulation and intervention as appropriate.

Indirect Clinical:
• Use a broad theoretical knowledge base and highly specialist clinical skills to develop and support the psychological skills of others (assistant, trainee and other psychologists and members of other staff groups, particularly community and inpatient based staff) via the development and delivery of teaching, training, supervision, support and consultation.
• Be responsible for providing a psychological perspective/ psychological expertise for service or team activities, including clinical care, team or service dynamics, systems, health promotion, team or service organisation, in a range of settings, e.g. CPA meetings, case discussions, team meetings etc
• Provide advice, guidance and support in more general ways, to staff in the community and wards, and to families and carers.
• Be responsible for developing and maintaining knowledge of local resources and developing working relationships with relevant statutory, voluntary and community groups and organisations.
• Be responsible for proposing innovative responses to identified community needs and developing these in consultation with senior colleagues.
• Supervise clinical/counselling psychologists in training and other staff as appropriate. Supervise qualified clinical/counselling psychologists as appropriate.
• Participate in the organisation and delivery of training events and consultancy covering this highly specialist area, and including work with local voluntary organisations.
• Participate in the evaluation of services, including collection of monitoring information as required.
• Contribute to service development, raising the profile of Older Adult Mental Health at a borough level.
• Formulate and undertake service related research and audit and support other staff in research activities.
• Receive regular clinical and management supervision in accordance with good practice guidelines to ensure high quality work, to engage in the Individual Performance Review process and continuing professional development, and generally work within a clinical governance framework.

Policy and Service Development:
• Organise own day to day activities, plan and prioritise own clinical workload across the different functions of the service (notably memory service and community team)
• Manage psychology and neuropsychology waiting lists and patterns of attendance in consultation with line manager and service manager.
• Identify and propose potential changes to work practices and procedures in own area of work and contribute to discussions on service wide and specialism issues.
• Participate as a member of the Older Adult Mental Health team attending relevant business, clinical and quality assurance meetings, including Whole Service Meetings & Away-days, as required.
• To work in accordance with Trust Policies & Procedures and the Code of Conduct of the British Psychological Society and the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
• To be a member of Psychology of Older People (FPOP) and contribute to wider policy developments related to Older Adults where appropriate in association with Lead Psychologist.

Human Resources:
• Supervise and co-ordinate the work of assistant psychologists, trainee psychologists and qualified psychologists, where appropriate.
• Provide specialist advice to, teach, train, supervise, support and consult to members of other staff groups on psychological theory and practice.
• Develop and deliver, jointly with other clinical psychologists where necessary, teaching events for clinical psychology Doctoral training programmes.

Research and Development:
• Work within an ELFT Quality Improvement Methodology.
• Maintain and update research, knowledge and skills.
• Develop and implement service related and/or academic research projects.
• Develop and implement clinical audit and survey projects.
• Organise and supervise research activity undertaken by assistant psychologists, trainee psychologists and qualified psychologists where appropriate.

Information Technology:
• Record and report on personally generated clinical information.
• Enter clinical information as required into local and Trust electronic information systems.
• Prepare teaching materials and presentations to a professional level.


This advert closes on Friday 18 Jul 2025