Job summary
- Main area
- Clinical/Counselling Psychology
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8a
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time
- Flexible working
- Job ref
- 363-NEW7250348
- Employer
- East London NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Newham Centre for Mental Health
- Town
- London
- Salary
- £59,490 - £66,239 per annum Inc HCA
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 26/06/2025 23:59
Employer heading
8a Highly Specialist Clinical/ Counselling Psychologist
NHS AfC: Band 8a
ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental and health care, innovation and improvement. So it is a very exciting time for you to come and work for us. Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.
Job overview
Are you a psychologist with an interest in inpatient mental health and a passion for bringing psychological ways of working to complex systems?
If so, read on!
We are looking for an enthusiastic qualified psychologist with experience in working with systems and families, to join the Newham Acute Psychology Service (NAPS). This team provides psychological services to the people who reside, work and visit Newham Centre for Mental Health (NCMH).
Why work with us?
Within the NAPS team you will be encouraged to bring your ideas and creativity to develop the psychology provision in your wards and across the service. Staff development and innovation is very important to us. See below for a list of some of our current projects:
- Relational Security (i.e. See, Think, Act) and trauma-informed care implementation.
- Quality improvement projects.
- Sensory interventions in NCMH.
- New project for systemic working with families and systems to support transition to the community.
CPD opportunities:
- Collaboration with the local Systemic Therapies service.
- Research opportunities in collaboration with NELFT and the University of East London.
- CPD opportunities (e.g. systemic working, indirect approaches, leadership) within a Band 8a role.
- Local Secondary Care Psychological Services network offers further opportunities for learning and connection.
Main duties of the job
You will be responsible for bringing psychological approaches to our adult triage mental health wards. Our overall aim within the NAPS team is to foster a compassionate, safe and therapeutic culture for all people within the service. You would be expected to play an active part in planning, prioritising and reflecting on how best to organise your work to move towards this aim.
Roles will include direct interventions with patients in group, individual and family sessions; staff support and development including team formulation, reflective practice and training; leadership of co-production, evaluation and quality improvement (QI) initiatives throughout the service. There is a current focus on supporting the discharge process and interface with community services, in collaboration with our local systemic therapy team. Where required, this may involve seeing families in their homes.
We are looking for applicants who bring enthusiasm and creativity around inpatient working. Experience in acute mh services and providing culturally inclusive psychological approaches in NHS services is also highly desirable as well as an ability to speak an additional local language.
The Trust has embraced flexible working. We are interested in hybrid ways of working that are within the scope of the role.
We look forward to welcoming the successful candidate; their ideas, passions and aspirations into our team.
Working for our organisation
Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.
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Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Kindly refer to the job description and person specification that is attached to the vacancy profile.
Person specification
Other
Essential criteria
- Able to travel independently between work sites and to community settings for the delivery of services.
Desirable criteria
- Ability to speak an additional local language.
Education/ Qualification
Essential criteria
- Doctorate in Clinical/ Counselling Psychology or equivalence and able to demonstrate eligibility for BPS
- HCPC registration as a Practitioner Psychologist.
Desirable criteria
- Further training or qualifications in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice (e.g. Systemic approaches).
- Quality Improvement Training
- Clinical supervision training for doctoral psychology trainees.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Post-qualification experience as a practitioner psychologist or equivalent.
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the range of care settings, including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the treat of physical abuse.
- Experience of providing teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision.
- Experience in working in multidisciplinary settings and representing a psychological perspective in teams and services.
- Experience of systemic working with families and teams
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working as a psychologist in an inpatient setting.
- Experience of professional management of qualified and pre-qualified clinical psychologists.
- Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
- Experience in contributing to service development, redesign and improvements in secondary mental health services
Knowledge and skills
Essential criteria
- Doctoral level knowledge of clinical psychology including highly developed knowledge of lifespan developmental psychology, models of psychopathology, psychometrics and neuropsychology.
- An in depth knowledge and skills in applying clinical risk assessment and management in own and others’ clinical caseload.
- Able to communicate at a high level verbally and in writing highly complex, technical and sensitive information to clients, families, carers, and a range of professionals and lay people within and outside the NHS.
- Skills in providing supervision and consultation to psychology staff and other professional and non-professional groups.
- Able to plan, organise and prioritise own workload in the face of periods of competing demands.
- Up to date knowledge of psychological research, national guidance and legislation relevant to the delivery of secondary mental health services.
- Aware of the potential impact of discrimination & disadvantage on mental health.
Desirable criteria
- Highly developed knowledge of the theory and delivery of specialised psychological practice relevant to a secondary mental health setting, specifically inpatient mental health (e.g. psychosis, personality disorder, complex trauma, complex risk assessment and cognitive assessment).
- Record of having published in either peer reviewed or academic or professional journals and/or books.
Personal
Essential criteria
- Enthusiasm for a broad range of psychological phenomena, an interest in models of service delivery and an ability to articulate the value added by clinical psychology services within the context of multi-disciplinary mental health services (particularly inpatient mental health).
- Able to manage effectively frequent exposure to highly distressing/highly emotional circumstances and exposure to traumatic circumstances.
- Respectful approach to service users, families, carers, colleagues and other professionals. Willing to negotiate and can handle confrontation effectively and professionally.
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
- Gavin Taylor
- Job title
- Lead for Newham Acute Psychology Service
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 02075404380
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