Detailed job description and main responsibilities

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.