We are seeking to recruit a Clinical or Health Psychologist with specialist skills to join our IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) services in BLMK (Bedford, Luton and Milton Keynes). This post holder will provide clinical health services to a diverse population of people within our long term conditions pathway. This role will particularly support our new pathway for those patients in BLMK who have a diagnosis of long covid.

This clinical role involves providing specialist psychological assessment and intervention to those with long term conditions. This is a new role and so will be shaped jointly with IAPT services and the post holder. We envisage the role will include interventions on a 1:1 and group basis across BLMK and the post holder will also play an important part in supervising IAPT clinicians to support this patient group.

Main duties of the job

We are keen to recruit an experienced Health Psychologist to join our integrated care system and lead on the development and delivery of Long-Term Health Conditions (LTC) and Medically Unexplained Symptoms (MUS) within IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) services across the Bedford, Milton Keynes and Luton area (BLMK).

This is a new position and therefore you will have the opportunity and freedom to develop this role in close collaboration with our IAPT teams to develop agreed care pathways with physical health services and provide advice and health psychology consultancy and supervision across our IAPT Services at a regional level. We are keen for the post-holder to take a leading role in the development of treatment pathways for newer patient populations such as long covid.

As our sole Health Psychologist, you will be valued for the expertise and skills you bring and work closely with our IAPT Clinical Leads and Long-Term Conditions teams to make a visible difference to our patients.

BLMK as a system are renowned for being inclusive and friendly and are building a collaboration that works extremely well. We are happy to consider flexible working (e.g. reduced hours, varied working times, etc). We are committed to our colleagues ongoing professional development and will support in any way we can with this. We are keen to welcome the right candidate to our team.

About us

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive - so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations

Job description Job responsibilities

We are a flexible trust and depending on the post holders circumstances we can find the most convenient base for them. There will be travelling across BLMK involved and this will vary depending on need and as the project develops. The post holder will be supported by the clinical leads of the BLMK IAPT services and will be supported by the physical health services across the system.

The successful candidate will have experience of and enthusiasm for working with long term conditions and will provide assessment, consultation, intervention and supervision working with a team of a multidisciplinary staff. There are plentiful opportunities to be involved with service development, audits and research within the services.

You will be a HCPC registered practitioner psychologist and have experience of working with clients who have long term conditions.

Please for further information kindly refer to the job description and person specification attached to this vacancy.

Person Specification Education/ Qualification/ Training Essential

• oHealth and Care Professional Council (HCPC) registered Health Psychologist.
• oPostgraduate level Training in health psychology (BPS accredited) or equivalent qualification in relevant psychological profession plus further specialist training, research or study conferring advanced theoretical and practical knowledge and practice experience of clinical health psychology.
• oCompleted Clinical Supervision Training.

Desirable

• oCompleted IAPT Supervision Training.

Experience Essential

• oStrong proven track record working as practitioner psychologist including a minimum of 2 years post qualification experience within the health psychology specialism.
• oSignificant experience of providing effective highly specialist psychological assessment and treatment of services users with a range of LTC or MUS needs who are also experiencing mental health difficulties.
• oDemonstratable experience of providing effective psychology treatments for trauma e.g. EMDR or Trauma focused CBT.

Desirable

• oExperience of effectively leading on service development and/or improvement initiatives involving multi disciplines and multi agencies.
• oExperience of providing supervision and developing practitioners clinical skills through a variety of different channels.

Knowledge and Skills Essential

• oUp to date knowledge of the evidence base, treatment options and service delivery model for people with LTC/MUS and their families and careers.
• oKnowledge of best practice approaches and service issues linked to trauma informed care.
• oKnowledge of the theory and practise of specialised psychological assessments and interventions.
• oExcellent interpersonal skills with the ability to build effective working relationships with patients, colleagues and other key stakeholder to achieve beneficial outcomes.
• oAbility to effectively prioritise workload and manage competing demands.
• oDemonstrates and role models our organisational values.

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

363-SS11206