Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical

• Exercise autonomous professional responsibility and be legally responsible and accountable for all aspects of professional practice, being guided by principles and broad occupational policies.
• Provide specialised psychological assessments using a wide variety of methods, 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.
• Analyse, interpret and integrate complex assessment information where the data are often conflicting and incomplete.
• Formulate plans for formal psychological therapy, across a range of care settings, based on a number of provisional hypotheses derived from psychological theory and evidence-based practice.
• Implemented a range of specialised psychological interventions, for individuals, carers, families and groups.
• Adjust and refine psychological formulations and therapy options based on continual re-assessment of clients during therapy, monitoring and evaluating progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care, in order to maximise the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions.
• Be available to multi-disciplinary team colleagues for the provision of psychological advice and consultation on clinical practice.
• Undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide case-related advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management.
• Act as a co-ordinator of care as appropriate, overseeing the provision of a care programme appropriate for the client’s needs, co-ordinating the work of others involved with care, taking responsibility for arranging reviews as required, and communicating effectively with the client, his/her family and all others involved in the network of care, including professionals from other agencies.
• In highly sensitive clinical situations, to communicate, in a skilled and persuasive manner, complicated information about assessment, formulation and therapy plans with clients who may be confrontational, have major communication difficulties or be difficult to engage and maintain in therapy.
• In consultation with manager(s), to develop and maintain the highest standards of professional practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes.
• Contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology within the team, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.
• Maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group and mental health.

Service Management and Development

• Contribute to the development of local team policies and procedures and implement accordingly. Suggest changes to team working practices in order to improve service quality.
• Contribute to the development of local team services. Advise service management on aspects of the service related to the team where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing. Comment on the content of draft policies and procedures.
• Exercise delegated responsibility for managing assistant psychologists and the workload of trainees, within the framework of the team/service policies and procedures. Act as a panel member in the short-listing and interviewing of psychology staff within the team, and other staff, as appropriate.

Teaching, Training and Supervision

• Receive regular clinical, professional and managerial supervision and undertake appropriate Continuing Professional Development. Provide clinical, professional and managerial supervision for designated psychology staff below Senior level, and to provide clinical supervision to multi-disciplinary staff work within the team, as appropriate.
• Provide clinical placements and supervision for trainee practitioner psychologists at Doctoral level, and to assess and evaluate their competencies. Develop and provide pre- and post-graduate teaching of clinical psychology, as appropriate.
• Provide supervision for staff working in other services or partner agencies, as appropriate. Develop and provide training to other disciplines across a range of settings and agencies, where appropriate.

Research and Development Activity

• Plan and conduct audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service, in order to help develop service provision.
• Maintain specialised skills in the critical appraisal of relevant research literature, for the purposes of adhering to, and developing, evidence-based practice. Undertake appropriate research within the team.
• Provide research advice to other staff undertaking research within the team, and trainee practitioner psychologists.
• Provide formal research supervision to trainee practitioner psychologists and other staff, as appropriate.

Finance and Physical Resources

• Observe a personal duty of care in relation to equipment and resources supplied by the Health Board.

Information Resources

• Make appropriate notes of clinical sessions and accurately record and analyse observational data, psychological test results and research findings.
• Use the computer as necessary for clinical work, including literature searches, word processing, developing and maintaining training packs, information leaflets, inputting data, e-mailing, report writing and other tasks for the efficient running of the service. Maintain and promote the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance.

Provide the post-holder’s line manager with an adequate data set of personal clinical activity and timesheet or other work record.