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Job summary

Main area
Clinical Psychology
Grade
Band 8b
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
350-MHC6129379
Employer
Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Knowsley Resource and Recovery Centre
Town
Prescot
Salary
£58,972 - £68,525 per annum
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
27/05/2024 23:59

Employer heading

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust logo

Principal Clinical Psychologist

Band 8b

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Job overview

A vacancy has arisen for a 8B Clinical Psychologist working within the Step 4 Psychological Therapies Knowsley Service.  We are looking for someone with the clinical skills and experience to enable them to work with severe, enduring and complex mental health problems. The successful candidate will join a group of Clinical Psychologists, Cognitive Behaviour Therapists, Nurses and practitioners specialising in Personality Disorder.  

The banding of the post reflects the additional responsibilities that the successful applicant will be expected to fulfil, in terms of developing leadership skills and dealing with a range of non-clinical issues not expected of a lower banding.

Main duties of the job

The successful candidate will be providing assessments, formulations and therapeutic interventions, both individually and in group format, where indicated.  The post holder will have a strong interest and commitment to working with complex psychological presentations, in particular psychosis, trauma and personality disorders.  Experience of research, audit and teaching would also be beneficial. The successful applicant will have particular responsibilities overseeing the operation of the CBT clinical pathway and supervisions. 

The post holder will also have opportunities for Continuing Professional Development and be encouraged to contribute to the professional development of other staff members. 

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 11 million people. 

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. 

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please refer to the Job Description for the principal responsibilities for this post and the detailed person specification.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
  • Registered with the Health Professions Council as a Clinical Psychologist
Desirable criteria
  • Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice. Post-qualification specialist training in particular psychotherapeutic approaches e.g., cognitive analytic psychotherapy, dialectical behaviour therapy, CFT, EMDR etc.

Skills

Essential criteria
  • Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours.
  • Ability to identify, and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
  • Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings
  • Ability to demonstrate clinical leadership with a service sector
  • Ability to contain and work within organisational stress
  • Enthusiasm for a broad range of psychological approaches and interest in models of service delivery and ability to articulate the value added by clinical psychology services within the context of multi-disciplinary team working.
  • IT literate

Knowledge and Experience

Essential criteria
  • 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 multidisciplinary care plan.
  • Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision.
  • Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
  • Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, highly technical, and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
  • Skills in providing consultation to other professional and nonprofessional groups.
  • Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology.
  • Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health
  • Knowledge of attachment theory
  • Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS.
  • Formal training in supervision of other psychologists or equivalent experience 50 hours supervision in a specific modality, case presentations, group supervision supported by short courses approved by the Psychology Head of Service
  • Assessed experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist for a minimum of three - four years with 2 years at a highly specialist level.
  • 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 full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in patient and residential care settings severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
  • Specialist experience in the area of complex trauma-related mental health.
Desirable criteria
  • Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies and assessment methodologies.
  • Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g., personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
  • Experience of representing psychology within the context of multidisciplinary care.
  • Experience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care settings.
  • Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
  • Experience of working within a multicultural framework.

Values

Essential criteria
  • Continuous Improvement • Accountability • Respectfulness • Enthusiasm • Support • High professional standards • Responsive to service users • Engaging leadership style • Strong customer service belief • Transparency and honesty • Discreet • Change oriented

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Veteran AwareApprenticeships logoNo smoking policyPositive about disabled peopleCare quality commission - GoodArmed Forces Covenant Gold AwardCTP The Ministry of Defence partnering with Right ManagementDisability confident employerStep into healthArmed Forces Covenant

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

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Michael Valentine
Job title
Consultant Clinical Psychologist
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
0151 351 8600
Additional information

Rachel Roberts, Clinical Team Manager- [email protected] or 0151 351 8600. 

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