Job summary
- Main area
- Clinical Psychology
- Grade
- Band 8a
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 350-MHC8053687-B
- Employer
- Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- William House, first floor
- Town
- Liverpool
- Salary
- £57,528 - £64,750 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 16/08/2026 23:59
Employer heading
Clinical Psychologist/Senior Psychotherapist
Band 8a
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Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnically diverse, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.
Using AI to support your application
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Job overview
We wish to recruit an 8a Clinical Psychologist for our Liverpool Step Forward service. We provide a stepped model of Psychological care to those who might previously have ‘fallen through the gap’ between primary and secondary mental health services, with our intention being to reduce the possibility of longer term deterioration in people’s mental health by offering more timely earlier interventions. The service comprises Clinical Psychologists, Psychological Practitioners and Assistant Psychologists.
The successful candidate will join a passionate and welcoming team and provide trauma-informed interventions to clients and carers aged 18 upwards with a range of difficulties. There is also the opportunity to become involved in Step Forward’s widening access agenda, which aims to address issues of racial inequality within the service and improve health outcomes for people from under-represented communities.
We recognise the value that diversity brings to a team and the population it serves, and therefore positively encourage and welcome applications from people from various ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds. The successful candidate will be supported with their training aspirations and in developing their leadership skills.
There are opportunities to work remotely, and flexible working can also be offered. Whilst the post being advertised is full-time, we would consider part-time candidates.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will provide, supervise and support the highly specialised psychological assessment and therapy provided by other psychological professions and other members of the team who provide psychologically based care and treatment.
The post holder will exercise delegated management responsibilities where appropriate and work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the team.
The post holder will utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research and propose and implement policy changes within the area served by the team.
Working for our organisation
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team 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 psychological problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy.
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, monitor progress and make highly skilled evaluations and 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 standard care plans.
To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment and treatment of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based enhanced care plans.
To provide specialist psychological advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plans.
To ensure that all members of the clinical team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.
To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide both general and specialist advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the clients needs, coordinating the work of others involved with care, taking responsibility for arranging CPA reviews as required and communicating effectively with the client, his/her family and all others involved in the network of care, and to monitor progress during the course of multi-disciplinary interventions.
To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, highly complex information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care where there may be conflicting views, high emotion and significant barriers to understanding and change, and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.
To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team.
The candidate would be expected to provide staff support in the form of 1:1 supervision, peer support and reflective practice group on a regular basis.
The candidate will also have opportunities in:
Engaging in wider Trust initiatives to address issues of racial inequality.
Developing service materials, resources and interventions to ensure they are culturally responsive and appropriate, and meet the needs of people from minoritised ethnic groups.
Developing our service pathways to address issues of inequality and barriers of access (e.g. referral pathway, intervention pathway).
Supporting training and education of staff teams to raise awareness of racial inequality and systemic racism, and encourage culturally responsive practice.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Doctoral level training in clinical psychology accredited by the BPS or its approved equivalent. and
- Registration with Health Care Professions Council as Practitioner Psychologist. or
- Core mental health qualification such as mental health nursing, social work, OT (professional registration to be maintained) And
- Registered with a professional body for their therapy e.g., BACP, BABCP, ACAT or other equivalent accreditation applicable within the UK
- Or Holds recognised qualifications and holds practitioner accreditation for two recognised therapy models (e.g. CAT; EMDR; CBT)
Desirable criteria
- Post- graduate/doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.
- Experience of working within secondary mental health services
- Working towards or holding EMDR consultant accreditation
Experience
Essential criteria
- Assessed experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologistor psychotherapist at a specialist level for a significant period.
- For Senior Psychotherapists evidence of substantial therapy experience postqualification, delivering / supervising as an accredited therapist in a recognised therapy model (e.g., EMDR / CAT / CBT)
- Significant experience of representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinarycare.
- Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients’ psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and also within the context of a multi-disciplinary care plan.
- Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care settings.
- Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts
Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Knowledge and skill developmentto meet KSF factor 2 Level 8 requirements.
- Expertise in the use of complexmethods of psychological assessment, formulation, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
- Knowledge of research designand methodology, including complex, multivariate data analysis.
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of the theory and practice ofspecialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g., personality disorder, dual diagnoses, peoplewith additional disabilities etc.)
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least twospecialised psychological therapies.
Skills
Essential criteria
- Able to evidence well developedand effective communication skills, oral and written, to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
- Able to evidence skills in providing consultation to other professional and non - professional groups.
- Evidence of continuing professional development.
Values
Essential criteria
- Continuous improvement – committed to making improvements to our services for the benefit of all.
- Accountability – taking ownership to anticipate, develop and deliver high quality care.
- Respect – how we treat others in an inclusive and supportive way.
- Enthusiasm – demonstrate our passion and pride for what we do and how we do it.
- Support – actively supporting others with compassion and courage.
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
- Nazik Nemat
- Job title
- Consultant Clinical Psychologist
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 0151 295 303
- Additional information
Amanda Anderson, Principal Clinical Psychologist
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