We welcome asenior psychologist to take up the lead role in development and delivery of clinical psychology and neuropsychological expertise for the Alderbourne and Daniels inpatient Rehabilitation Units and associated services at Hillingdon Hospital.

The post holder will be a key member of the Unit's senior management team, working closely with the medical, therapy and nursing teams, managing the junior psychologist and attached specialty trainees to deliver excellent direct and indirect psychological care and better outcomes for patients.

The role will be supported by the Head of Clinical Health Psychology, the lead clinician in Rehabilitation Medicine, clinical colleagues in associated neurorehabilitation services in NWL and the CNWL Psychological Professionals network, and additional external clinical supervision will be arranged as needed.

The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.

Main duties of the job

The lead psychologist in this role will be working closely with clinical and professional leads, service managers and senior MDT colleagues, to:

• Develop and co-ordinate the systematic provision of a specialist psychology service for neurorehabilitation (and associated services) at Hillingdon Hospital and personally provide highly specialist clinical input to patients and their families and carers. This includes managing and supervising the full-time junior clinical psychologist in post.
• Ensure that systems are in place and working effectively for the recruitment, clinical and professional supervision and support of junior psychologists, specialty trainees, assistants and students within the Units and associated services.
• Function as a lead specialist in neuropsychological care, providing consultation, training, supervision to MDTs and associated services
• Agree core outcomes and KPIs with clinical and professional leads and work autonomously and collaboratively towards achieving these.
• To work as an autonomous professional within BPS and HCPC guidelines and codes of conduct, guided by the objectives, principles and policies of the service, taking responsibility for interpreting policies within defined parameters.
• To continue to develop advanced and specialist knowledge and skills in this specialty, including undertaking QiCN.

About us

About the Neurorehabilitation Service

The inpatient neurological rehabilitation service at Hillingdon Hospital comprises of 2 wards, currently both are based at the Hillingdon Hospital site at Uxbridge.

• Alderbourne Rehabilitation Unit has 20 inpatient beds and its own multidisciplinary team. 4 of these beds have been commissioned by NHS England as part of the Rapid Access to Acute Rehabilitation (RAAR) initiative.
• Daniels Rehabilitation Unit is located nearby, with 16 beds and broadly admits similar cases as Alderbourne.

About Hillingdon Hospital

https://thh.nhs.uk/about-us

Hillingdon Hospital deliver services for local people within Hillingdon, and to those living in the surrounding areas, giving us a total catchment population of over 350,000. Our Trust runs services from two sites, Hillingdon HospitalandMount Vernon Hospital.

About CNWL Psychological Professions

https://vimeo.com/showcase/10260378/video/819030655

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) is a great place to work for Psychological Professions. We employ qualified and pre-qualified staff from across a wide range of Psychological Professions and we value the rich, diverse contributions to our services that our great staff make. There is a wealth of CPD opportunities available for all our staff and career opportunities in the psychological professions and beyond.

Job description

Job responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

Clinical care

• To develop, co-ordinate and ensure the systematic provision of a highly specialist psychology service to neurorehabilitation and related services, 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 patients, family members and others involved in the patients care.
• To formulate and implement plans for the psychological care and/or management of a clients physical and psychological difficulties, based upon an appropriate biopsychosocial understanding of the persons difficulties and context, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy in this specific setting.
• 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 and make 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 integrate within the psychological formulation specialist biopsychosocial knowledge of neurological illness and injury.
• To understand the role of medical and therapies inputs in neurorehabilitation, and to offer appropriate advice to the patient, carers and clinicians in the light of such understanding.
• To draw on the formulation and provide efficient, targeted psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals, contributing directly to the patients care plan in a way that optimises biopsychosocial outcomes and the Units efficiency
• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically-informed framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all patients of the Unit.

• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual patients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• To communicate in a highly skilled and compassionate manner when discussing information relating to the Unit and the psychological input.
• To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team, where appropriate.
• To collaborate with the ward Nursing Team, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, Liaison Psychiatry, Neurologists and Rehabilitation Medicine colleagues in the care of patients with cognitive, communicative impairments and challenging behaviour following brain injury. This will require hands involvement on the ward floor to interpret ABC charts and support nursing staff in particular to manage this cohort of patients.
• It is important that the post holder has a pragmatic grasp of the depth and breadth of psychological issues of the inpatients. Some patients merely require intermittent oversight whist other require detailed cognitive testing and drawing up of strategies to work on the impairments

Responsibilities for team & service clinical functioning

• To take a lead in ensuring a psychologically-informed framework for delivery of care in neurorehabilitation and associated services
• To take a lead in developing the team & services delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities.
• To be proactive in challenging discrimination and support the development of culturally competent services.
• To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.

Policy and service development

• To implement policies and procedures in own area of work.
• To identify any aspects of the service which could be improved and propose changes to practices or procedures that affect neurorehabilitation and associated services
• To initiate and implement service improvement / development projects, as agreed with clinical/professional lead
• To participate in the ongoing implementation of new initiatives (e.g. national guidelines) across relevant services.
• To lead the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and delivering services which meet the needs of local communities.

Care or management of resources

• To take care of, and use carefully, the Trusts equipment and physical resources.
• To ensure that the post-holder has sufficient resources by estimating future needs and requesting or ordering supplies as needed.

Management and supervision

• To provide clinical leadership to junior psychologists and other related professionals as appropriate.
• To be responsible for the allocation and/or clinical supervision of the work of junior psychologists.
• To supervise trainee applied psychologists within own area of specialism.
• To contribute to the appraisal of more junior psychologists, as appropriate.
• To contribute to the recruitment of more junior psychologists, as appropriate.

Teaching and training

• To undertake occasional teaching and training of pre and post- qualification psychologists and specialised training to other professions as appropriate
• To contribute to the development of the knowledge and skills base within the Units by maintaining an active awareness of current developments in the speciality and implementing knowledge gained in practice.
• To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles
• To gain additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to clinical psychology in neurorehabilitation, as planned with professional and clinical service leads

Record-keeping and information governance

• To ensure that all information generated in the course of work is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.
• To ensure the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry, in those parts of the service for which the post-holder has leadership responsibility.

Research and development

• To initiate, undertake, support and supervise regular complex service evaluation and audits
• To provide expertise in a specialist research area which will contribute to the Units and associated service.
• To initiate and implement the development of outcome measurement and assessment and assist other staff in the implementation of same.

Maintaining professional standards and continuing professional development

• To receive regular clinical and professional supervision from a more senior psychologist according to HCPC and Trust guidelines.
• To ensure own Continuing Professional Development in line with BPS and Trust Personal Development Plan requirements and the HCPC Standards for Continuing Professional Development.
• To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of current developments in professional and clinical practice and of relevant legislation and policies.
• To comply with the HCPC Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics and Standards of Proficiency, and ensure professional development in line with these.
• To adhere to the BPSs Professional Practice Guidelines and Trust policies and procedures.
• To ensure that all psychology and psychotherapy staff for whom the post-holder has leadership responsibility, maintain professional standards and continuing professional development.

General

• To be aware of risk relating to aggressive and challenging behaviour amongst the client group and follow local policies relating to its management
• To respond appropriately and professionally to emotionally distressing situations (e.g. challenging behaviour) and to support others involved in such situations.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Doctorate in clinical psychology
• HCPC registration as Practitioner Psychologist (Clinical)

Desirable

• Qualification in Clinical Neuropsychology

Experience

Essential

• Experience in clinical health psychology and/or neuropsychological care

Desirable

• Experience in inpatient neurorehabilitation

Employer details

Employer name

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

333-G-HM-0612