Macmillan Clinical/ Counselling Psychologist | Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust

Posting date:	21 November 2025
Salary:	Not specified
Additional salary information:	£47,810 - £62,682 pa pro rata
Hours:	Part time
Closing date:	21 December 2025
Location:	Wednesbury, Walsall, WS10 8SY
Company:	Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust
Job type:	Permanent
Job reference:	7553249/407-COMMUNITY-7553249

Summary

Band 7 / 8a Preceptorship 0.8 WTE

We are pleased to offer this exciting opportunity to join Walsall cancer services. This is a post which has been collaboratively developed by the Macmillan organisation and Walsall Healthcare. The role will involve working in the Palliative Care and Oncology Services providing psychological services to individuals with cancer and other life limiting conditions and their carers. The post is integrative of palliative and end of life care services and will work across the cancer pathway. They will work closely with Macmillan Nurses, Cancer Nurse Specialists, medical staff, GPs, Bereavement Counsellors, the In- patient unit and other NHS and Social Services staff. They will also provide consultancy, teaching and training and clinical supervision to other staff and research skills.

The post holder will work alongside our existing Consultant Counselling Psychologist in Oncology/ Palliative Care who has been successfully developing comprehensive psychological services in the last year. Psychology has enjoyed good working relationships within the service. It is a preceptorship post, so the postholder appointed at band 7 will be supported in developing into the full 8a job description over a period of time.

You will be joining the Clinical Health Psychology Service, consisting of a group of psychologists working in various areas in the trust


PLEASE NOTE, WE MAY CLOSE THIS VACANCY EARLY IF WE RECEIVE HIGH NUMBERS OF APPLICATIONS.

The postholder will be responsible for providing highly specialised assessments and programmes of psychological care for oncology and palliative care patients and their families. They will co-ordinate specialist service provision to oncology and palliative care and work collaboratively with the existing psychologist and other health professionals and non-professional carers, particularly Clinical Nurse Specialists, Cancer Care Navigators, and palliative physicians and therapists. As well as managing their own patient workload they will be responsible for supervising the work of less experienced psychologists, trainee clinical psychologists and other health professionals in the specialist area. They will work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the palliative care service’s policies and procedures.

The post is a preceptorship at band 7 to 8a. A post holder appointed at band 7 will be supported in developing the necessary knowledge and skills with a view to fulfilling the requirements of the 8a post. A plan will be drawn up with the post holder to facilitate professional development over a period of approximately twenty four months.

Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust is an integrated Trust and the only provider of NHS acute care in Walsall, serving a population of 284,300. It provides inpatient and outpatient services at the Manor Hospital as well as a wide range of services in the community. Walsall Manor houses the full range of district general hospital services under one roof. The £170 million development was completed in 2010, and ongoing upgrades ensure the Trust now has state-of-the-art facilities, including a Critical Care Unit, Neonatal Unit, Obstetric Theatre, and Integrated Assessment Unit. A new Urgent and Emergency Care Centre, opened in March 2023, has significantly improved emergency care facilities and capacity, providing almost 5,000 square metres of additional clinical space.

1. Clinical

• Provide a specialist clinical service to patients and their families who have been diagnosed with cancer and other life limiting conditions.
• Assess and interpret highly complex clinical situations and information from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, structured observations and semi structured interviews with patients, family members and others involved in the patients care.
• Develop formulations and use psychological models and frameworks to provide patients and their families with specialised programmes of care, based on evidence of efficacy, to help them adjust to and cope emotionally with the often significantly distressing aspects of cancer as a long term condition or terminal illness. This may occur in individual or group settings.
• Organise, coordinate and facilitate therapeutic group work including self management groups (Fatigue Anxiety and Sleep, Managing Stress Mindfully) and support groups ( Men and Cancer), and develop other groups that may be of benefit for patients, in collaboration with the existing psychologist..
• Evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
• Develop trusting and empathic relationships with patients and be able to communicate highly emotive information with clarity and sensitivity.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
• Participate in relevant multi-disciplinary teams and work collaboratively and in an integrated manner with other health professionals eg Clinical Nurse Specialists, Physical Therapists, Counsellors, Talking Therapists, Physicians, and other NHS and social services staff.
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• To take responsibility for prioritising work activities according to service and user needs and resources, and managing own clinical case load.
• Provide clinical input as well as advice, education, supervision for staff at Level 2 (NICE Guidance) and training in psychosocial aspects of care to staff at the Walsall Palliative Care Centre and Walsall Manor Hospital, in collaboration with the existing psychologist in palliative care and oncology.
• Liaise regularly and work collaboratively with existing psychologist in palliative care and oncology across an integrated End of Life Care pathway spanning the acute and community services.
• To take responsibility for providing specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professional groups as appropriate.
• To take responsibility for maintaining own competency to practice through Continuing Professional Development and gain additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to the service and clinical health psychology.
• Participate in performance reviews and peer support.
• To attend Clinical Health Psychology meetings and contribute to the service clinical seminar meetings.

2. Management, Policy and Service Development

• Work collaboratively within the NHS and multi-agency groups to advance good working relationships with local health, social care, hospital and hospice staff, to ensure integration of initiatives and services
• Advise both service and professional management of implications of relevant local and national guidance for psychological provision of services for cancer and non cancer patients eg. NICE guidance ( 2004), End of Life Care Strategy (2008), Transforming end of life care in acute hospitals (2012)
• Be proactive in identifying and proposing safety, quality and service improvements to the psychology service in oncology and palliative care in consultation with the Consultant Counselling Psychologist and other staff and in line with the evidence base and local and national guidance documents.
• To take a lead role in developing the psychological care aspects of service-related projects and programmes.
• Take responsibility for maintaining satisfactory records of service operation in accordance with agreed protocols, regular auditing service data and ensuring security of confidential data.
• Adhere to current policies in oncology and palliative care and all trust policy and procedures related to risk, health and safety and confidentiality of information.
• Contribute to developments in oncology and palliative care services at a local and regional level including West Midlands Cancer Alliance.
• To be accountable to the head of Clinical Health Psychology for clinical governance eg. issues of quality, clinical effectiveness and clinical risk.

3. Teaching, Training and Supervision

• Provide leadership and direction on psychological issues in conjunction with the existing psychologist to staff across the integrated pathway for End of Life Care.
• Receive regular clinical supervision in accordance with good practise guidelines and as expected for all clinical psychologists
• Provide regular Level 2 clinical supervision for Clinical Nurse Specialists, Junior Doctors, and AHPs based at the Palliative Care Centre and Walsall Manor Hospital, and clinical supervision for junior psychologists, Trainee Clinical Psychologists, Counsellors, Assistant Psychologists and other health professionals where appropriate.
• Provide support to other staff working in challenging circumstances to manage the emotional demands of their clinical roles where appropriate.
• Responsible for providing education and training in the psychological aspects of care to empower and enable other health professionals to achieve the highest standards of psychosocial care in accordance with the 4 tiered system outlined in the NICE (2004) guidance.
• Take appropriate care of trust equipment and resources used in the course of work.

4. Research and Development

• Undertake complex service related audit and evaluation with colleagues to help develop service provision.
• Initiate research relevant to palliative care and oncology services.
• Supervise psychologically related research of trainees, assistants and other health professionals.
• Disseminate results through presenting at case discussions, workshops, and conferences and/or through publication.
• Consider theory, evidence based literature and research to support evidence based practise in individual work and work with other team members.
• Examine and study new ways of working or transferring existing practical and theoretical models of work from one context to another.

5. Information Technology

• Skilled at use of information technology systems to support service related work eg. word processing and use of databases.
Uses information technology systems to support formal and informal research activities: developing databases, collecting, collating and entering data.




General Duties


Other Duties
The information supplied above is intended to summarise the key responsibilities and duties of the role. The post holder may be required from time to time to carry out other reasonable requests and duties as required, consistent with the responsibilities of their Banding and development as agreed between employee and manager.

Job Design and Review
This job description may be subject to change in the future. Any proposed changes will normally be discussed fully with the post holder with the AfC job evaluation process applied and confirmed via the issue of an updated job description.




This advert closes on Sunday 7 Dec 2025