Detailed job description and main responsibilities

You will work directly with service users providing individual, group and family sessions. Additionally, you will work closely with the ward team to jointly assess and plan how to treat people with complex sets of difficulties as well as supporting the teams with reflective practice. You will also be encouraged to contribute towards service improvement, either by supporting local Quality Improvement initiatives or larger, trust wide projects.  Each ward has assistant psychologist input and you will have the opportunity to supervise a trainee clinical psychologist. We have strong links with Surrey University and encourage research collaboration.

Clinical

• To provide specialist psychological assessments of service users admitted to the admission wards linked to the post based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care.
• To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
• To 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.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.
• To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance, consultation and training to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all service users on the respective wards.
• 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 communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care, integrating the contribution of other professionals on the basis of client need.
• To work jointly with psychological therapists based in community teams, to plan and hand over the psychological assessment and treatment of patients that may continue after discharge in the community.

Teaching, Training, and Supervision

• In keeping with all practitioners of psychological therapies to receive regular clinical and professional supervision from a senior clinical psychologist specialising in adult mental health and, where appropriate, from other senior professional colleagues.
• To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision for other MDT staff’s psychological work, as appropriate.
• To provide training and supervision for members of the ward team in the delivery of psychologically informed care and treatment, including trauma informed approaches to care and treatment.
• To provide professional and clinical supervision of an Assistant Psychologist or graduate psychologist assigned to support the post holder and supervision of attached doctoral trainee clinical or counselling psychologists (for band 8a clinical/counselling psychologists only).
• To contribute to pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical psychology, as appropriate.
• To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, including facilitating or supervising the facilitation of reflective practice groups on linked wards and the implementation of trauma informed approaches to care.

Management, Recruitment, Policy and Service Development

• To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the wards’ operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
• To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing in line with service excellence and service objectives.
• To manage the workloads of the assigned Assistant Psychologist, doctoral trainee clinical psychologists (8a post holders only, where appropriate) and graduate psychologists where appropriate, within the framework of the team/service’s policies and procedures.
• To be involved, as appropriate, in the shortlisting and interviewing of assistant/graduate psychologists.
• To contribute to the development of user and carer involvement within the service.
• To manage own workload effectively and efficiently, taking into account the needs of the team and the flexibility required to sustain service user engagement.

Research and Service Evaluation

• To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
• To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research in relation to people with severe and enduring mental health problems in line with Trust policies and procedures and with the agreement of the Professional Head of Service and Service Manager.
• To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.
• To contribute to the maintenance and development of specialist educational and assessment resources to be used with this client group.

Other

• To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the postholder’s professional and team managers.
• To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular specialist professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.
• To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society and Trust policies and procedures.
• To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the rehabilitation client group and mental health in general.
• To work between community units on a regular basis.