Job summary
- Main area
- Mental health
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8b
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Part time - 30 hours per week
- Job ref
- 437-7279419
- Employer
- Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Salford Royal Hospital
- Town
- Salford
- Salary
- £62,215 - £72,293 Per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 21/07/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist
NHS AfC: Band 8b
Job overview
An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist to join the Salford Mental Health Liaison Team (MHLT). The postholder will be responsible for providing and clinically leading a high-quality psychology service within the team for people experiencing mental and physical ill-health.
You will join a well established, multi-disciplinary service, providing a service to anyone presenting with a suspected or actual mental health difficulty in either the Emergency Department or on the acute hospital wards. We work closely alongside our acute colleagues to ensure that any patient receives a high quality level of care for their mental health, alongside any physical health difficulties.
Main duties of the job
Provide direct face-to-face clinical sessions in which they will carry out highly specialist psychological assessments, leading to the co-development of formulations to guide signposting and/or subsequent short-term interventions and contribute to the team-based care planning and change focused work. The post holder will be expected to provide one-to-one, family and group intervention work as appropriate.
Support the implementation of trauma informed ways of working by facilitating the development of MHLT colleague’s psychosocial intervention knowledge and skills. This may also be by the provision of co-working opportunities, supervision, consultation and liaison sessions, as well as formulation sessions, in house training events, reflective practice sessions and de-briefs, and staff-focused well-being initiatives.
Contribute to maintaining a culture of person-centred care and personal recovery within the team by liaising with colleagues across organisations, attending MHLT MDT meetings, and other MDT and professionals meeting as required.
Close co-working with MHLT senior colleagues will be key, and the postholder will be expected to contribute to service development initiatives and their evaluation by audit and research work as required to support and enable the service’s adaptation to future changes to delivery as required.
Working for our organisation
Greater Manchester Mental Health (GMMH) Foundation Trust employs over 7000 members of staff, who deliver services from more than 122 locations.
We provide inpatient and community-based mental health care for people living in Bolton, the city of Manchester, Salford, Trafford and the borough of Wigan, and a wide range of specialist mental health and substance misuse services across Greater Manchester, the north west of England and beyond.
Greater Manchester is one of the world's most innovative, original and exciting places to live and work. From the beauty of the surrounding countryside to the heart of the vibrant inner city with great shopping, entertainment and dining options.
Wherever you go you will experience a great northern welcome with people famed for their warmth, humour and generosity.
Our people enjoy their work, have opportunities to learn and develop their skills and are encouraged to generate new ideas that improve care for our service users.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please refer to attached Job Description for full details.
To undertake highly specialist psychological assessments of complex clients, based upon the appropriate use and interpretation of data from various sources, including neuropsychological tests, across a wide-ranging age group.
To make highly skilled evaluations and decisions about assessment and treatment options considering both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group drawing on advanced specialist knowledge and planning of complex processes.
To formulate the presentation of a range of complex mental health problems and their potential interaction with physical health problems to aid personal recovery. This includes formulation of the complex systems in which individuals are receiving care. To adjust and refine psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintain several provisional hypotheses.
To deliver highly specialist interventions and develop specialised programmes of psychological care.
To undertake risk assessment for relevant individual clients and to provide both general and specialist advice for psychologists and other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management.
To advise upon psychological treatment plans for intervention and/or management.
To harness and support the psychological skills of other team members by providing supervision, opportunities for co-working, and multi-disciplinary forums.
To develop and maintain appropriate frameworks for the provision of supervision and consultancy to support the psychological and psychosocial intervention work of colleagues.
Person specification
Education/Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Post-graduate doctorate in clinical or counselling psychology, (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996), and current registration as a Practitioner Psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council
- Willingness to undertake appropriate supervisory courses.
Desirable criteria
- Specialist training and accreditation (where available) in evidence-based therapies as agreed with the service (e.g., CAT or CBT).
- Completion of relevant modules of Accredited Doctoral Clinical Psychology Course: Introduction to Supervision Courses (approx. 30 hours) or equivalent, or professional equivalent e.g. CAT supervisor training.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of complex and often co-occurring mental health problems.
- Experience of specialist assessment and treatment of people experiencing mental and physical ill-health
- Experience of developing psychological formulations to inform care for service users and care teams i.e., systemic formulation of complex needs
- Experience of providing clinical leadership to teams providing complex care (i.e. MDT based care).
- Experience of working with people with complex mental health problems, including problems associated with complex relational and emotional needs, distressing psychosis and severe depression, anxiety, co-morbid substance misuse, suicidal thoughts and trauma.
- Experience of leading audit and service evaluation
- Experience of providing clinical supervision to psychologists, psychological therapists or other core health professions and non-therapists.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working within a MHLT
- Research experience within an area relevant to role.
- Demonstrable experience of the application of psychological therapy in diverse cultural and ethnic contexts.
- Experience of working across different age groups.
- Demonstrable experience of managing demand for psychological services via a stepped-care framework
Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Knowledge and understanding of the national and regional legislation, guidance and policy directives in relation to the development and delivery of psychological therapies within acute services and specifically MHL services.
- Evidence of post-qualification CPD as recommended and/or accredited by the BPS, or other professional body.
- Up to date knowledge of the needs of people with complex mental health problems and interaction with physical health problems.
- Familiarity with computing technology, including keyboard skills, and use of word-processing, e-mail, and internet software
Skills & Abilities
Essential criteria
- Excellent interpersonal skills
- Ability to work with service users, carers and families to engage with their needs and provide them with appropriate psychological support and intervention.
- Skills in providing and communicating psychological consultation to other professional and non-professional groups
- Excellent communication skills, both oral and written, enabling the communication of complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information with clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues within the NHS and other agencies.
- Ability to plan and prioritise work, operate a waiting list, meet short deadlines and an unpredictable work pattern that requires regular revision of plans.
- Ability to sit in constrained position for client therapy, testing and for computer work.
- Ability to work at a high level of professional autonomy and responsibility, in a collaborative multi-disciplinary environment and also as a lone worker in circumstances where there may be exposure to conflict.
Desirable criteria
- Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials, suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings
- Ability to demonstrate an area of special interest/skill in therapeutic intervention
Other Requirements
Essential criteria
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour
- Ability to work towards goals agreed at Individual Appraisal with the Service Manager
- Ability to work to professional guidelines.
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
- Bethan David
- Job title
- Operational Manager (Urgent Care Services)
- Email address
- [email protected]
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