Job summary
- Main area
- Older Adult Specialty
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8d
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Part time - 30 hours per week
- Job ref
- 001-PST028-0625
- Employer
- Cardiff and Vale University Health Board
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- University Hospital Llandough
- Town
- Cardiff
- Salary
- £89,491 - £103,203 pro rata
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 10/07/2025 23:59
Employer heading

Consultant Practitioner Psychologist and Head of Specialties
NHS AfC: Band 8d
WHO WE ARE:
Cardiff and Vale University Health Board is one of the largest Integrated Health Board in the UK, employing over 16,000 staff and providing over 100 specialist services. Serving a population of around 500,000 people living in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, we are focussed on the health and care needs of our local population whilst also working with our partners to develop regional services. Together we are committed to improving health outcomes for everyone and to delivering excellent care and support.
Our mission is “Living Well, Caring Well, Working Together”. We have recently refreshed our strategy, Shaping Our Future Wellbeing, which sets out the Health Board’s Vision for improving the health and wellbeing of the populations we serve by 2035 through the delivery of our strategic objectives; Putting People First, Providing Outstanding Quality, Delivering in the Right Places, and Acting for the Future. We have challenging times ahead, but we are confident that by tackling these challenges together, we can support people to live healthier lives and reduce the unfair differences in the prevalence of illness and health outcomes we see in our communities today. We aspire to deliver outstanding care and treatment for people when they need it, where they need it; care that compares well with the best in the world, but to do so, we need to transform how we deliver services over the next decade and beyond.
We are a values-driven organisation and out goals will only be realised if our values are at the heart of everything we do. Created by colleagues, patients and their families and carers, our values are:
· We are kind and caring
· We are respectful
· We have trust and integrity
· We take personal responsibility
OUR REGION:
Wales has much to offer with miles of stunning coastline, UNESCO world heritage sites and beautiful countryside. Cardiff, the thriving Welsh capital, has something for everyone. It is a fantastic city to live and work in with an abundance of sports, arts and cultural attractions. Situated to the west of Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan offers a combination of beautiful Welsh countryside and a dramatic natural coastline, as well as charming towns including Penarth and Cowbridge. Those seeking more culture may find themselves drawn to the National Museum, St Fagan’s Museum of Welsh Life or the Millennium Centre, home of the Welsh National Opera. Whether city life or rural living, Cardiff and the Vale offers the best of both worlds.
Please be advised that there is a temporary top up for Bands 2 and 3 to reflect the incorporation of the top up to the living wage of £12.60 per hour - £24,638 per annum.
This temporary top up will be in place until the annual pay uplift for 2025/26 is confirmed
Job overview
This is a rare and very exciting opportunity to take over the Psychology Head of Specialty role for a number of services relevant to older people. This includes management of the Mental Health Services for Older People, Dementia services (Young Onset Dementia) and Memory Team, other neuro-degenerative conditions relevant to older people and also the Neuropsychiatric Services.
In addition to line management and Head of Specialty responsibilities , you will retain a small clinical case-load of the most complex cases and there is opportunity for you to develop and work clinically within your specialist area of interest relevant to the Older Adult services
The work being undertaken within these services is creative and rewarding. The staff you line manage are highly skilled, creative, hard-working and supportive. The multi-disciplinary team and your wider colleagues/network are similarly talented, supportive and appreciative of psychological interventions and engagement.
The post holder also takes responsibility for patient safety , in conjunction with and as agreed with the Psychology and Psychological Therapies Clinical Director.
You will receive excellent support from the Clinical Director and Directorate Managers of Psychology and Psychological Therapies and MHSOP/Neuropsychiatry alongside the other relevant Directorates.
Excellent opportunities for supervision, peer consultation and CPD are available and well supported
Main duties of the job
The main duties and responsibilities of the job are outlined in the attached job description and person specifications. The role combines clinical responsibilities and line management responsibilities whilst being Head of Specialties relevant to older adults. This includes Mental Health Services for Older People, Dementia and Memory Team Services, Parkinson's Disease etc and also including the regional Neuropsychiatric Service.
English and/or Welsh speakers are equally welcome to apply.
Working for our organisation
Cardiff and Vale University Health Board is one of the largest Integrated Health Boards in the UK, employing over 17,000 staff, providing over 100 specialist services. Working across 6 hospital sites, we have a diverse range of career opportunities to offer. Serving over 500,000 people living in Cardiff and the Vale, we are focussed on the health and care needs of our local population whilst working with our partners to develop regional services. Together we are committed to improving health outcomes for everyone, delivering excellent care and support.
Our mission is “Living Well, Caring Well, Working Together”, and our vision is that every person’s chance of leading a healthy life should be equal. Our 10-year transformation and improvement strategy, Shaping Our Future Wellbeing, is our chance to work collaboratively with the public and our workforce to make our health board more sustainable for the future.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please see the attached Job Description that encompasses the main roles and responsibilities of the job
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Good Honours degree in Psychology with eligibility for Graduate Basis for Chartership (GBC) with the BPS.
- Post-graduate Doctorate in Clinical/Counselling Psychology accredited by the HCPC (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996 as accredited by the BPS).
- HCPC registration as a practitioner psychologist.
Desirable criteria
- Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialist areas of psychological practice, particularly psychological services for older people and neuropsychiatry.
- Qualification in supervision
- Evidence of peer reviewed publications, presentations at conferences, or similar contributions.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Extensive and demonstrable experience of working as a HCPC registered practitioner psychologist in services for older people
- Extensive experience of working with a wide range of patient groups presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in-patient and residential care settings and maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems.
- Experience of teaching, training and professional and clinical supervision.
- Demonstrable evidence of significant specialist clinical supervision within a scientist-practitioner framework, including individual supervision, group supervision and case presentations.
- Experience of NHS management tasks and negotiating with NHS managers, professionals, colleagues and other agencies
- Experience in audit and evaluation of clinical services.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of professional management of qualified and pre-qualified clinical psychologists.
- Experience of leading a therapy team
- Experience of conducting research of a high a standard
Skills
Essential criteria
- Skills in the use of highly complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management, frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
Desirable criteria
- Able to take responsibility for managing and providing a specialist service, or systematically providing part of a larger service
- Ability to manage staff (including line management) and negotiate specialty issues
- Ability to use highest level of interpersonal and communication skills to convey and receive highly complex / sensitive information effectively, requiring empathy and reassurance, in a highly emotive atmosphere and the ability to overcome psychological resistance to potentially threatening information, whilst maintaining high degree of professionalism at all times.
- Ability to interpret general clinical, professional and organisational policies and to use own initiative to establish how they should be applied within the area of specialty.
- Ability to design and implement policy for services and to propose service changes that impact beyond that area of activity.
- Ability to plan a clinical service and to formulate a long term strategic plan which may involve uncertainty.
Special knowledge
Essential criteria
- Doctoral level knowledge of clinical / counselling psychology theory and practice, assessment, psychological therapies and their application. Including highly developed knowledge of psychology relevant to people with severe and enduring and complex mental health, dementia and those “at risk” and two or more distinct psychological therapies.
- Evidence of significant post-qualification continuing professional development as recommended by the HCPC and BPS.
- Formal training in supervision of other psychologists.
- Knowledge of legislation and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to the service.
- Up-to-date knowledge of NHS management, service development and policy implementation in Wales-wide services.
- Knowledge of any national service guidelines for the area of specialty and its implications for clinical practice and professional management in relation to mental health services for older people, dementia and/or neuropsychiatry
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of local NHS structures.
- Awareness of ethnic diversity issues.
Personal qualities
Essential criteria
- Commitment to working collaboratively with users of services and their care partners to develop and improve services.
- Leadership and management qualities and ability to demonstrate these skills
- Ability to negotiate within the NHS and with external bodies.
- Ability to motivate and influence people to deliver a high-quality service.
- Ability to contain and work with organisational stress and the ability to hold the stress for others.
- Ability to make decisions and problem solve.
- Ability to cope with continual exposure to distressing and highly emotional clinical material.
- Ability to display exceptional skills in the respectful, therapeutic handling of clients.
Desirable criteria
- A commitment to the evaluation of services, enthusiasm for multi-professional and uni-professional audit, and a desire to continue to develop expertise in the area of specialty.
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.
Welsh language skills are desirable
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Clare Quinn
- Job title
- Consultant Clinical Psychologist Head of Specialty
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 02921 825789
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