Job summary

This is an exciting opportunity for an 8b applied psychologist or an 8a wishing to develop to 8b in chronic pain and CFS / ME self-management based on third wave behavioural therapies (e.g., ACT, CFT and mindfulness). Experience is preferred in pain or related long term health conditions, but we would consider interviewing psychologists who, with appropriate support, could bring transferable skills from other areas to this work. Experience of working in a mental health setting is also highly relevant to this post.

This post will be based in Portsmouth supporting patients within the city and surrounding areas. The role will be a mix of base and remote working with occasional travel across Southern Hampshire.

Our teams work together and are a strong network of like-minded professionals with joint education and training, supervision, and clinical governance. We have psychologists of all grades, embedded within interdisciplinary teams (including physiotherapy, nursing, OT, doctors). Our teams are committed to working with psychological approaches. The successful applicant will be involved in delivering these and providing consultation and supervision to the wider team. We aim to develop individuals within their roles including an internal training programme and supervisor experience appropriate to grade. The Trust has a strong research department, and we have an ongoing programme of research projects based primarily on audit and service evaluation work, which our psychologists lead on.

Main duties of the job

To support the Consultant Clinical Psychologist in ensuring the systematic provision of a high quality service to clients referred to Solent Pain and CFS/ME Services

To support the Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the development and delivery of Solent NHS Trust Pain and CFS/ME Services.

To provide highly complex psychological assessments and interventions to people with chronic pain and other LTCs as services require, using a predominantly third wave behavioural therapies (ACT, CFT etc) approach but drawing upon other evidence-based theoretical approaches.

To provide expert advice, supervision, and consultancy to other healthcare professionals (including other psychologists) within the team who provide psychologically based care and treatment.

To work as an autonomous and independent practitioner, planning and prioritising own workload, responsible for the interpretation of professional guidelines and service/organisational policies and procedures and commenting upon and proposing changes to policy or service development.

To undertake research and utilise research skills for audit and policy and service development as a major job requirement.

To manage more junior psychologists as agreed with the Consultant Clinical Psychologist and to provide clinical and professional supervision to doctoral trainee psychologists and newly qualified psychologists attached to the team.

About us

Make a difference with us

If you are looking for somewhere you can make a real difference and are passionate about keeping people safe, well and out of hospital, a career with us may be just what you're looking for. At Solent NHS Trust, we strive to make a difference to the health and wellbeing of our communities.

We are proud to be an organisation which is focused on our people and we welcome people who share our values to come and work with us.

To deliver great care that is safe, simple and easy to access

To be a caring, flexible and supportive place to work

To deliver the best value for money

Our shared values support the development of a strong working culture. They breathe life into our organisation -- guiding and inspiring all of our actions and decisions. They enable us to be better at what we do and create a great place for our staff to work, whilst ensuring we provide the highest quality of care to our patients.

In creating our values, we spent time listening to our employees and members. Based on what people told us, we created our HEART values to reflect the deep belief that we are caring organisation at the centre of our community: Honesty, Everyone counts, Accountable, Respectful, Teamwork.

We are an accredited Real Living Wage employer.

We encourage and support our staff to be vaccinated as this remains the best line of defence against Covid-19.

Job description

Job responsibilities

*Please Note : For a detailed job description for this vacancy, please see attached Job Description*

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in applied psychology (or its equivalent for those trained before 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and cognitive testing, two or more distinct psychological therapies and life-span developmental psychology.
• Further post-doctoral training in specialised areas of clinical practice, including advanced cognitive therapy skills and the application of psychological principles to patients with chronic physical health problems, through formal post-doctoral training (diploma or equivalent) OR a combination of specialist short courses, together with an evidenced portfolio of supervised practise-based learning in these specialist clinical areas, assessed by an experienced clinical supervisor to be of equivalent to a postgraduate diploma.
• Completion of a post-doctoral clinical supervision training (short course) or equivalent sufficient to be able to supervise doctoral trainees and other psychologists.
• Qualified to administer and interpret the full range of psychological assessment instruments, including tests of cognitive function and impairment, to the standard required for eligibility to register with professional psychological assessment organisations.
• Registered with the Health and Care Professions Council as a Practitioner Psychologist

Experience

Essential

• Worked as a Practitioner Psychologist for at least four years post-qualification.
• Assessed experience of highly specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
• Experience of working with a wide range of client groups, across the whole life course and with presenting mental health and cognitive problems which represent the full range of clinical severity, including maintaining professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Demonstrates further post-doctoral specialist experience and post-doctoral training through having received a minimum of 50 hours clinical supervision over a period of at least 18 months and attendance on a minimum of 6 short specialist courses. These courses should relate to the specialist and advanced application of therapeutic models (e.g. cognitive therapy) and the application of psychological principles to this highly specialist client group.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of working in a constantly changing environment

Desirable

• Post-doctoral experience of the theory and practice of psychological therapies as applied to people with physical health problems, including people with chronic pain and / or CFS / ME. This should include experience of contextual cognitive behaviour therapy (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and the use of mindfulness.
• One year's supervised practice of co-leading a pain management programme
• Experience of the application of applied psychology in different cultural contexts and of working within multi-cultural frameworks

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

449-Team1-1326