Job summary
- Main area
- CAMHS Management
- Grade
- Band 8C
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 371-CFS672
- Employer
- Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Erlegh House
- Town
- Reading
- Salary
- £79,163 - £90,880 per annum (inc. of HCAS)
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 16/02/2026 23:59
Employer heading
Consultant Clinical / Counselling Psychologist
Band 8C
Job overview
An exciting opportunity has become available for a Band 8c Consultant Clinical / Counselling Psychologist within our Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services; Getting More Help, Specialist Community teams, Targeted, Crisis and Alternative to Admission Services. This post is a full-time (1.0wte), 5 days a week, permanent post. The base is: Erlegh House and you will cover Berkshire-wide.
We are looking someone with a passion to ensure psychological therapies adhere to the highest quality level for children and young people and can develop staff within this.
We have identified that this is a role where we have underrepresentation of ethnically diverse colleagues. As part of our commitment to inclusion and Unity Against Racism we offer guaranteed interviews to candidates who meet the essential criteria and identify as: Asian or Asian British, Black or Black British, Mixed and ‘Other’ Ethnic Groups.
Main duties of the job
- To ensure the systematic provision of high-quality evidence-based specialist psychological provision within the area of responsibility, and collaborating closely with other psychological consultants, clinical and professional leads, develop cohesive psychological pathways across service boundaries.
- To work with other clinical and professional leads and managers within the wider services and across local/regional systems as required to support integrated multi-professional and multi-agency care.
- To ensure that systems are in place and working effectively for the clinical and professional supervision and support of psychological professionals and practitioners.
- To provide support and advice to managers and colleagues on all issues concerned with evidence-based psychological practice and provide expert clinical consultation and professional guidance to psychological practitioners and other staff within areas of responsibility.
- To lead on and carry out audit, quality improvement and research activities and/or programmes, working alongside the Clinical Director, Governance and Quality Improvement leads and operational managers and to propose and implement related policy and service development changes.
- To provide expert consultation, teaching and supervision to psychological professionals and practitioners, and other staff both within the service and external to the services/agencies, as agreed with their Operational and Professional Leads.
Working for our organisation
Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health and community health services trust. Rated ‘outstanding’ by the CQC, we’re committed to providing the best possible care to people across Berkshire. As an employer, we’re committed to offering an inclusive and compassionate environment where our people share in a sense of belonging and are supported to flourish.
Our values at Berkshire Healthcare are:
- Caring for and about you is our top priority
- Committed to providing good quality, safe services
- Working Together with you to develop innovative solutions
Your wellbeing is important to us. Some of the benefits of working for us include:
- Flexible working options to support work-life balance
- 27 days’ annual leave rising with service + opportunity to buy and sell
- Generous NHS pension scheme
- Excellent learning and career development opportunities
- ‘Cycle to Work’ and car leasing scheme including electric vehicles
- Access to a range of wellbeing tools and services
- Discounts at hundreds of popular retailers and restaurants
- Staff networks for race, diversity, disabilities, the environment and armed forces community to support equality
- Generous maternity, paternity, adoption and special leave
- Free parking across Trust sites
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The “must haves” for this role:
- Candidates must hold a UK recognised qualification in clinical/counselling psychology and/or psychotherapy and have current UK professional registration with the Health and Care Professions Council or a core mental health profession and UKCP registration.
- DBS check is required.
- Ability to travel between bases in Berkshire as required.
- Motivated and enthusiastic clinical leadership.
For further information about the role, please see attached job description and person specification.
We strongly encourage you to review how you meet the criteria in the person specification and write about this point-by-point in your supporting statement for the best chance of being shortlisted.
We’re committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Our commitment to inclusion is reflected in our accreditations: Race Equality Matters Silver Trailblazer, Neurodiversity in Business Corporate Member, Disability Confident Leader, Carer Confident Level 2, and the Armed Forces Covenant Gold Award. Reasonable adjustments will be provided to candidates as needed.
We welcome a conversation about flexibility and any other questions you may have. Please don’t hesitate to contact: Kim Jones by email [email protected] who’ll be delighted to help.
Please note, if we receive a high number of applications, we may close this role earlier than the advertised closing date, so please submit your application as soon as possible.
Person specification
Education/Qualifications/Training
Essential criteria
- Post graduate doctoral qualification in clinical/counselling psychology (or approved equivalent for those who trained prior to 1996 or overseas), which provides eligibility for Chartered Membership of the British Psychological Society (BPS)
- Registration with Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a Practitioner Psychologist (Clinical/Counselling)
- (Eligibility for) Chartered Membership of British Psychological Society (BPS)
- Evidence of post-doctoral specialist training to accreditable level in at least two areas of psychological practice directly related to the clinical requirements for this post.
- Accreditations to reflect post qualification specialist training (e.g. BABCP, UKCP, ACAT, BACP, BPS/ACT, EMDR-UK).
- Clinical supervision training for doctorate psychology trainees (BPS Registered course) and other qualified clinicians
- Professional leadership qualification or equivalent level of substantial experience
- Training and/or proven ability in providing effective education, consultation and coaching to develop and support others.
Previous Experience
Essential criteria
- Extensive experience working as a qualified (Principal) clinical/counselling psychologist in the relevant specialism.
- Substantial experience of working in evidence-based ways with service users (and their carers and families) presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the range of care settings, maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems and threatening behaviour.
- Extensive experience of managing highly complex situations concerning safeguarding, risk management, clinical governance, complaints and investigations.
- Demonstrable experience of applying professional expertise when leading multidisciplinary teams / in multi-agency environments in a relevant clinical setting.
- Extensive experience of leading services and teams with complex caseloads requiring the application of evidence-based psychological methods, assessments, formulation, and interventions.
- Evidence of successfully holding responsibility for, delivering and being accountable for services that meet local and national targets
Knowledge, Skills & Abilities
Essential criteria
- Able to manage a demanding and complex caseload while supporting junior colleagues.
- High level and well-developed ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to service users, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within the Trust and across the system. Extensive experience of successfully managing complex and challenging discussions with system partners, including where there may be disagreement about responsibility for care.
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
- Teaching and group facilitation skills.
- Exceptional and highly effective interpersonal communication skills with the ability to support, engage and lead patients, clinicians and other stakeholder groups in change, development and improvement.
- Advanced IT skills and the ability to navigate various systems and software packages (such as RiO outlook, databases, MS office and the internet)
- Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.
Additional Requirements
Essential criteria
- Demonstrates the ability to respond to people’s needs sensitively particularly regarding all aspects of diversity
- Able to work flexibly as required (including on call where relevant) and to travel independently between locations to fulfil the requirements and duties of the position.
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Kim Jones
- Job title
- CAMHS Head of Service
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07786703615
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