Practitioner Psychologist (clinical, counselling, health)

Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust

Staff Psychological Wellbeing Service

Band 7 - Permanent post

We are looking for an enthusiastic and innovative psychologist interested in the opportunity to gain experience, knowledge and skills working in our Staff Psychological Wellbeing Service (SPWS) within the People Directorate, Health and Wellbeing Service at Northampton General Hospital (NGH) Trust, part of the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire NHS Group.

NGH is a general acute hospital serving a population of 380,000 and cancer, hyper-acute stroke, vascular and renal services to almost 700,000 people living throughout whole of Northamptonshire. It has state of the art new critical care and emergency assessment buildings.

Our SPWS is based in the People directorate building, however there is a purpose built staff support Hub on site called Ourspace which has bespoke facilities for 1:1 therapeutic consultation and group support space.

Main duties of the job

Professionally, the post holder will be part of a well organised SPWS that is an integrated part of the Staff Health and Wellbeing Service at NGH, supported by a full time Principal Psychologist and a Consultant Psychologist and will be part of a larger group of applied psychologists working in the acute hospitals and within Staff Support across Northants.

These Psychology groups meet regularly to provide peer support, CPD opportunities and to drive a systemic regional approach to staff wellbeing.

The SPWS provides the post-holder with an opportunity to work within a well established SPWS, providing access to supervision, CPD and training in a range of psychological therapies including CBT, ACT, CFT and health psychology interventions for long-term condition management.

The SPWS has a wide focus supporting individuals, teams and the organisation to prevent psychological distress in its workforce and promote broader health and wellbeing.

The post-holder will have varied opportunities to work with mental, physical and neurodiverse staff populations and become involved with delivering long term condition staff support groups, the county wide Long COVID group and providing training on a range of psychologically informed areas to non-psychology, clinical and non-clinical staff.

About us

Northampton General Hospital is one of the largest employers in the area and we are on an exciting journey. All of our divisions are committed to doing things better, with more efficiency as we update, modernise, and advance. We have also entered into a Group Model with neighbouring Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and become University Hospitals of Northamptonshire.

Our Excellence Values

Compassion

Accountability

Respect

Integrity

Courage

We want to recruit the best people to deliver our services across the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire and help to unleash everyone's full potential. As an organisation, we value how we communicate and promote our vacancies to all communities.

The Hospital Group encourages applications from people who identify from all protected groups, especially those from BAME, Disabled and LGBTQ+ backgrounds as these are underrepresented in our hospitals.

We understand that we need to work with colleagues from diverse backgrounds and make sure the environment they work in is inclusive and collaborative.

We have active Networks that promote and support colleagues from all backgrounds.This ensures everyone feels supported and has a sense of belonging working for Kettering and Northampton General Hospitals.

Job description

Job responsibilities

The SPWS is committed to enhancing the psychological wellbeing of our healthcare colleagues that care for people who use our acute hospital services. The aim of the SPWS is to ensure healthcare colleagues have timely access to psychological interventions and that this sits within a stepped care staff support model that includes multidisciplinary staff support services (e.g TRiM incident support/ peer support service, organisational development, occupational health, HR and a wider health and wellbeing team).

The post holder will be trained in the NGH staff suicide risk assessment protocol and will undertake risk assessments and triage work within the stepped care service in addition to having a 1:1 client caseload. Staff are referred through a SPOC process and we assess suitability, and best fit with in house or external service support and work closely with our colleagues in Northamptonshire to facilitate this (e.g. CMHT, IAPT, Stronger Together Staff Resilience Hub). The postholder will be expected to hold an in-house clinical caseload working with staff experiencing the impact of organisational issues/systems on their psychological wellbeing and provide a liaison role where needed to advocate or support staff further. The post holder will be supported with their professional development to deliver psychologically formulated interventions within in a short term support service delivery model. The post holder will also provide consultation and case management support to our non-psychologist colleagues we work closely with including Professional Nurse/ Midwife Advocates, managers, HR business partners, the organisational development coaching team, occupational health nursing team and the HWB incident debrief support team.

Other duties may include providing input for therapeutic groups such as our compassionate focused staff support course, long term condition support group and reflective practice and care spaces sessions for teams. Others include service development and evaluation work under guidance from the SPWS Lead and opportunities for conducting research and supporting trainees on placement. The SPWS has links both Doctorates in Clinical and Health Psychology UK training courses.

Investing in our Staff Supporters: There are weekly SPWS service meetings, MDT referral meetings and clinical supervision and regular contact with the wider HWB service team meetings and away days. Involvement in the Northants reflective practice supervision network meetings is encouraged and a funded place within the HWB team compassionate focused staff support supervision group with an external nationally accredited supervisor is provided.

This is an exciting post that is now fully embedded in an expanding SPWS and Health and Wellbeing Service across the UHN Group. It is a dynamic and compassionate team that appreciates that Staff Supporters also need looking after and values creative thinking and service innovation. This is a great time to join Team NGH as it embarks on the UHN Group Programme and has shown commitment and investment in its Peoples Health & Wellbeing weve even won the Our Health Heroes Award by Skills for Health in 2021, as Health and Wellbeing Employer of the Year!

To provide psychological assessments of individuals accessing the SPWS based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with the individual and others involved in the staff members working life (e.g. line manager, NGH support service, external care provider).

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of an individuals psychological needs, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the individuals needs, and employing evidence based psychotherapeutic methods.

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, teams and services adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and modalities where appropriate.

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, team or system.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of staff from the in house psychology service caseload and the signposting and onward referral of staff to external support services as required and informed by psychology based care plans.

To proactively outreach support to individuals/teams who would benefit from the Staff Psychology Service including providing consultation, guidance and signposting staff to the most appropriate service for their needs.

To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to staff health and wellbeing.

To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all individual staff within the service, across all services and agencies serving the staff group.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual staff and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of staff under the Psychology Service care with their consent when liaising with internal and external support agencies.

*For further details please see JD and PS*

Person Specification

Education, Training & Qualifications,

Essential

• BPS Accredited post-graduate doctoral level training in applied psychology clinical, counselling, health. As accredited by the BPS, including specifically delivering individual therapeutic interventions within healthcare populations and with a range of knowledge and expertise in working with health prevention behaviours, long-term conditions and mental health and risk management.
• Registered with the Health and Care Professions Council as a Practitioner Psychologist.

Desirable

• Training and or qualification in post- graduate therapeutic specialisms, eg staff wellbeing, ACT CBT.

Knowledge & Experience

Essential

• Experience of psychological assessment, formulation and treatment of clients across a range of care settings where staff are working.
• Experience of training in the delivery of at least two evidence-based therapies relevant to staff health and wellbeing e.g. CBT, ACT, Compassion focused therapy, Solution-focused Therapy.
• Experience of working with 18-65 age adults' mental health and psychological wellbeing, presenting with a full range of clinical severity in psychological difficulties including assessing risk.
• Experience of working with adults in different health and social care settings in patient or staff services maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and treatment within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
• Experience of representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care, teams, meetings.
• Experience of teaching, training and or professional and clinical supervision.
• Evidence of Continuing Professional Development as recommended by the BPS.
• To maintain and promulgate the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society and Trust policies and procedures.
• To maintain up to date knowledge of guidance and evidence relevant to delivering psychology services to adults within a wider Health and Wellbeing Support System e.g. a. The NHS People Plan, The Health & Wellbeing Strategy & Framework b. Local and national policy, guidance and strategies for supporting staff c. Risk Assessment and Management d. Clinical Governance e. NICE guidelines f. Current Mental Health Legislation .
• Experience of assessing and managing mental health risks.
• Experience of working with issues of difference and diversity.

Desirable

• Experience of working with staff that require support with psychological adjustment to workplace stress, their health and well-being and long-term condition management including those working in acute hospital settings.
• Experience of working with staff teams facilitating reflective practice groups and staff support groups.
• Experience in the clinical supervision or support of other psychologists and non-psychologists.
• Experience of working as a psychologist within staff health and wellbeing services, staff support systems, organisational development, occupational health or a related field.
• Experience of the
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