Job summary
- Main area
- Liaison Psych StH
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8a
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 294-AAUC-7282090-FZ-B
- Employer
- South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- St Helier Hospital
- Town
- Carshalton
- Salary
- £61,631 - £68,623 Per annum inclusive of Outer London HCAs
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 13/08/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Principal Clinical / Counselling Psychologist
NHS AfC: Band 8a
South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We provide a full range of local mental health services to the Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth London boroughs, as well as specialist forensic mental health services, including specialised services such as national deaf adults and CAMHS inpatients and OCD.
We are committed to providing high quality integrated health and social care for local people with mental health problems in South West London and more specialist mental health services for people throughout the UK. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’ however we aim to be ‘outstanding’.
Our Values
We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values; being consistent, compassionate, collaborative, respectful and open is at the heart of everything we do. Our mission is "making life better together".
When you join us, you’ll be part of something special – an innovative and rapidly growing organisation that is helping to redefine the Mental Health, education and social care landscape in the UK.
As a Trust, we are happy to talk flexible working.
Job overview
Band 8a Clinical / Counselling Psychologist
A great opportunity for a clinical or counselling psychologist provide psychology input to the St Helier hospital Psychiatric Liaison Service. This is a varied role with opportunities to use your skills in direct assessments and interventions with service users, as well as indirect work to support the whole team in gaining a psychological perspective when formulating and planning interventions.
You will have a wide breadth of work, including working with people presenting to hospital due to mental health crisis, as well as supporting other hospital inpatients who have co-occurring mental health difficulties.
You will work along side other professionals including psychiatrists and nurses, helping to develop the whole team approach to managing their cases.
You will have strong links with the SWLSGT Acute & Urgent care Psychology team.
This post can be offered as a Band 7 developmental role, with progression to Band 8a upon successful completion of the necessary competencies and requirements, subject to managerial and professional approval.
Main duties of the job
Provision of psychology input to the St Helier Liaison Psychiatry Service to include:
- Direct work with service users. Assessments, Formulations, Crisis planning and care planning, providing recommendations for treatment. Providing brief psychological interventions to address difficulties, such as work on emotion regulation, relapse prevention etc.
- Indirect work with service users: Contribution to team meetings to communicate psychology perspective in planning their care. Engaging with other stakeholders to establish treatment needs when discharged from Liaison team.
- Teamwork: Supporting the team more generally through provision of regular reflective practice, teaching and case formulations.
- Opportunity for supervision of clinical psychology trainee.
Working for our organisation
We are Proud to Belong at South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust.
We have expert services, a rich history and a clear commitment to providing the best quality care for those with mental ill-health. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’ - we aspire to be ‘outstanding’.
This is a great time to join us. We are transforming the way we care for our communities to support our mission of Making Life Better Together. We have built two brand new mental health facilities at Springfield University Hospital, which are amongst the best in the world. More developments are planned across our sites and services.
We offer flexible working, career development and a variety of benefits to enable a positive, welcoming environment in which our people and their careers can thrive.
Come and join our inclusive teams and help our patients on their recovery journey.
About our locations:
St Helier Liaison Psychiatry Service is located on the first floor of Ferguson House, within the St Helier Hospital premises. It offers a convenient location for staff, with excellent public transport links, a walkable local high street, and a variety of restaurants available on-site. Easily accessible and centrally positioned, it’s designed to support your daily workflow and comfort.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The main duties are outlined above.
- You will be expected to meet with service users in hospital settings such as A&E department and medical wards.
- You will have regular supervision from a senior psychologist within the Acute & Urgent Care service line
- You will be expected to join the monthly Acute & Urgent care psychology team meeting.
- You will be expected to contribute to various aspects of service development. This may include service evaluation, Quality Improvemnet or other transformation projects.
- You will be expected to liaise with other professionals in the network to establish packages of support when discharged.
Please see full details in the attached Job Description.
Person specification
EXPERIENCE
Essential criteria
- • Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings
- • Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse
- • Experience of delivering NICE adherent interventions especially CBT for psychological problems
- • Demonstrate further specialist training/experience through having received a minimum of 50 hours clinical supervision of working as a specialist clinical psychologist over a minimum of 18 months, or an alternative agreed by the Director of Psychology
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working in Liaison Psychiatry or other acute physical healthcare settings.
- Experience in working in acute and crisis mental health settings, such as Crisis Home Treatment Teams or acute psychiatric wards
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
- Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts
- Experience of working within a multicultural framework
Training & Qualifications
Essential criteria
- • Doctorate level training in Clinical or Counselling Psychology, or its’ equivalent, including two or more distinct psychological therapies as accredited by the HCPC
- • Registered as a practitioner psychologist with the HCPC under the appropriate domain specific title (Clinical Psychologist)
- • Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the HCPC
- • Post qualification training in clinical supervision of trainee psychologists
Desirable criteria
- • Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology
- • BABCP accredited CBT practitioner or eligibility for provisional registration of the BABCP as a CBT therapist
- • Qualifications in other forms of psychotherapy
Employer certification / accreditation badges
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
- Donald Kintu
- Job title
- Team Manager
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 02082962288
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