Job summary
- Main area
- Cancer
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 5
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 213-Division-A-8201245
- Employer
- King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Cross Site
- Town
- London
- Salary
- £38,488 - £46,852 per annum, including high cost allowance
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 26/08/2026 23:59
Employer heading
Macmillan Assistant Psychologist
NHS AfC: Band 5
King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is one of the UK’s largest and busiest teaching Trusts with a turnover of c£2.1 billion, 1.5 million patient contacts a year and more than 14,000 staff based across 5 main sites in South East London. The Trust provides a full range of local hospital services across its different sites, and specialist services from King’s College Hospital (KCH) sites at Denmark Hill in Camberwell and at the Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH) site in the London Borough of Bromley.
We encourage all our staff to have a healthy work/life balance. In doing so, you can apply for flexible working from the beginning of your employment. We offer a range of options which are designed to suit different circumstances and priorities in line with service requirements.
Job overview
The Cancer Psychological Care Team is now a permanently established service at King’s College Hospital, originating from a programme of work in partnership with Macmillan and in relation to the Kings cancer priorities to improve cancer patients experience. This includes improving access and support to patients with psychological issues through the provision of clinical services to patients as well as liaising with community services as appropriate. The main objective of this post will be to contribute to the provision of an integrated cancer psychology service across KCH.
The post-holder will join the Cancer Psychological Care Team at KCH, being a core member of the team, and assisting practitioner psychologists in the delivery of a specialist applied psychology service in cancer care. The main base will be near to Denmark Hill, but some travel is expected between sites, as needed.
Main duties of the job
- To assist practitioner psychologists in the delivery of a specialist applied psychology service in cancer care.
- To provide clinical work as required by the service, under the clinical and professional supervision of a practitioner psychologist.
- To assist in clinical and service-related administration, conduct of audits, collection of statistics, development of audit and/or research projects, teaching, group work, and project work.
- To ensure that systems are in place for the effective administration and management of the patient referral process. This will include providing key support for the collation and screening of new referrals, requesting additional referral information if required, presenting referrals in the team meeting, providing necessary telephone triage, and managing outcomes.
- To attend and contribute to weekly service level meetings, and multi-disciplinary team meetings.
- To work at appropriate levels of independence, following clinical guidelines and the policies and procedures of the service, and seeking help from clinical/professional supervisor or manager as required.
Working for our organisation
The Trust provides a full range of local and specialist services across its five sites. In June 2026, we launched our new strategy for 2026-31. Our vision is to transform healthcare, and we have agreed six strategic ambitions to help us improve care for patients, and the working lives of our staff.
Our six strategic ambitions are delivering high-quality patient care; creating a great place to work; leading pioneering research, innovation and education; building strong and successful partnerships; providing timely and efficient care; and ensuring long-term financial sustainability.
We have also agreed four new organisational values – Caring, Collaborative, Inclusive, Innovative – and these underpin everything we do, and how our teams interact with the patients under our care.
We are at a pivotal point in our history and we require individuals who are ready to join a highly professional team and make a real, lasting difference to our patients and our people.
King’s is committed to delivering Sustainable Healthcare for All via our Green Plan. In line with national Greener NHS ambitions, we have set net zero carbon targets of 2040 for our NHS Carbon Footprint and 2045 for our NHS Carbon Footprint Plus. Everyone’s contribution is required in order to meet the goals set out in our Green Plan and we encourage all staff to work responsibly, minimising their contributions to the Trust’s carbon emissions, waste and pollution wherever possible.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Main Duties and Responsibilities
Contributing to team and service clinical functioning
- To contribute to the effective working of the Service, for example by managing the service’s clinical database that capture patient flow through the service, ensuring that this is accurate and timely for each weekly clinical meeting.
- To act in a manner that supports a psychologically informed framework for the service.
- To support the team or service’s delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities.
Management of data and outcomes
- To ensure that all information generated by own work is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.
- To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry.
- To create and maintain databases, enter data, and perform analyses for service reports.
- To coordinate the collection, management, and analysis of outcomes for training and supervision sessions delivered to MDT colleagues.
Clinical and Patient Care
- To provide clinical work as required by the service, under the clinical and professional supervision of a practitioner psychologist.
- Where appropriate, to assist in the provision of psychological assessment and interventions for patients with less complex needs in the cancer psychological care team under the supervision of a more senior psychologist.
- To use weekly supervision meetings appropriately, to develop skills, including reflective capacity.
- Where appropriate, to arrange, schedule and help provide support connected to group psychological interventions for patients.
- To assist the psychologists in the development of individual or group clinical materials or training materials, and in addition to develop such materials independently as falls within own degree of competence.
- To contribute to the training and support of other staff in developing and providing psychological care of clients.
Person specification
Education and Qualifications
Essential criteria
- A First-class or Upper-second-class Bachelors degree with Honours in Psychology that is accredited by the British Psychological Society and confers the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership of the British Psychological Society.
Knowledge and Experience
Essential criteria
- Sufficient post-graduate experience of psychological assessment and treatment of clients with a range of psychological needs to be able to work clinically without direct supervision.
- Post-graduate experience of conducting research projects or audits.
- Experience that supports working with, and addressing issues of, diversity within local communities. This may have been gained through work, research, volunteering and / or lived experience.
- Graduate level knowledge of psychological research methodology and statistical analysis.
- Good theoretical knowledge of the problems experienced by and needs of adults with cancer and of methods of assessment and treatment.
- Awareness of racial and diversity issues through attendance of relevant training.
Desirable criteria
- Post-graduate experience of psychological assessment and treatment of clients with a range of psychological needs specifically related to cancer.
- Experience of working in multidisciplinary teams with colleagues from a range of disciplines.
- The Trust encourages and welcomes applications from people with lived experience of mental health challenges. We see this as valuable and recognise the positive impact this experience can have on the work we do
Skills and Competencies
Essential criteria
- Skills in relevant psychological assessment and interventions that enable working independently as a pre-qualified practitioner with clinical supervision.
- Well-developed verbal and written communication skills including communicating complex, sensitive or contentious information to clients, families and colleagues.
- Consultation skills to work with the multi-professional team or other professional groups within own service.
- Skills in providing teaching and training to other professional groups.
- Well-developed IT skills including entry and analysis of research data.
- Ability to work effectively within a multi-disciplinary team, contributing to effective team functioning and holding team roles.
- Ability to identify and follow relevant clinical governance procedures.
- Ability to maintain concentration and to remain in restricted positions for long periods during observations, assessments and psychological interventions.
- Ability to manage emotionally stressful situations such as working with victims of abuse or trauma, or with people who engage in severe self-harming or aggressive behaviour.
- Ability to communicate complex, sensitive or contentious information to people who may be aroused, or hostile to the information, or have severe impediments to understanding.
- Ability to manage verbal aggression and hostility directed at self.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
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.
Application numbers
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Dr Mark Groves [email protected]
- Job title
- Principal Clinical Psychologist and Service Lead
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 02032995355
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