Macmillan Clinical / Counselling Psychologist in Cancer Care

Band 730 hrs (.8 wte) per week (flexible or additional working hours possible up to 1.00 wte, 37.5 hours)

We are seeking to welcome a clinical or counselling psychologist to join our Psycho-oncology team in providing specialist psychological care for people affected by cancer, with a particular focus on the care of women with Gestational Trophoblastic Disease (GTD).

Charing Cross Hospital hosts the internationally leading GTD/Choriocarcinoma (CC) screening and treatment Centre, one of two such centres in the UK. The GTD/CC multidisciplinary team screens and treats women with malignancies arising from a pregnancy. To find out more about GTD, visit hmole-chorio site

While experience (through placement, research or post-qualification practice) in cancer psychological care or other acute medical setting will be a clear advantage, we don't expect extensive specialist experience. We are looking for a team player, who is willing to interact and work flexibly and collaboratively, can convey psychological insights to other staff with excellent interpersonal and communication skills, sharing skills where needed, and drawing creatively from their expertise in multiple psychological models and practices.

Main duties of the job

Working with guidance from the lead psychologist for psycho-oncology and the GTD team, the postholder will further develop a role that has been highly valued. The role includes direct clinical input to hospital inpatients and outpatients (on remote monitoring, acute treatment & long-term follow-up) face-face or via video clinic, as well as carers, families & bereavement support, group facilitation, contributing to the GTD team's research and quality improvement projects, and substantial consultation, skills training and clinical supervision.

As a research-active team with senior clinical-academic staff, there will be ample support to apply for research grants and projects in the area of GTD, which will be in addition to the clinical role.

Our new colleague will be the psychologist for the GTD team, and will also be sharing in the wider psycho-oncology clinical work with patients & carers from the full range of cancer clinics, to develop broad expertise. They will join our meetings for reflective practice & operational coordination, while clinical supervision & line management will be with senior psychologists from our team, as best suited to support the development of the postholder's clinical skills and interests.

About us

CNWL is recognised locally, nationally and internationally for providing integrated high quality, innovative healthcare. Our track record in recruiting only the best people is well known and our experts are frequently called upon to contribute to national health strategy and policy, and many models of our care have been adapted for use in other countries.

There is good access to CPD through a dedicated CNWL psychology CPD program and development opportunities at Imperial (e.g. courses in Quality Improvement methodology and Leadership development). As this is a Macmillan adopted post, the person will also have access to Macmillan CPD resources and opportunities.

Vaccination

The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users and we will therefore be seeking proof of vaccination or medical exemption during the recruitment process. 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.

Job description Job responsibilities

Please see JD for more details.

Clinical

• To provide specialist Level 3/4 psychological care for patients, and their families and carers affected by cancer and/or on the GTD pathway, including those on remote monitoring, inpatient hospital treatment and recovery.
• Offer comprehensive psychosocial assessment, with particular attention to background vulnerabilities and complexities, factors that impact on treatment (e.g. adherence), relationship to care and risk, 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.
• Develop a formulation of patients psychosocial adjustment & distress, and a collaboratively agreed plan of care, and convey this understanding in a clear and practical way to the wider MDT, supporting all staff to provide effective, compassionate and psychologically- minded care.
• To work from a broader psychological adjustment model, draw flexibly on skills in multiple therapeutic models of psychological care, to deliver a broad range of inputs, from one-off bedside or phone consultations to group work, brief-targeted and extended psychotherapeutic care.
• 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 work with partners, family members and carers affected by the patients illness and treatment, providing specialist psychological care, including bereavement support where required.
• Working collaboratively and flexibly within with the GTD team the psycho-oncology team, hospital liaison psychiatry team, primary/community services and third-sector resources to plan and coordinate psychological care for patients and carers, in line with best practice and patient choice.
• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all patients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the patient group.
• Provide clinical care through phone, video clinic and other channels as clinically appropriate and operationally necessary.

Teaching, training, and supervision 1. To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues. 2. Support and develop the first-line psychological care by GTD CNSs in line with the relevant psychological care pathway (2020 London TCST).

To continue to gain wider post-qualification experience relevant to the specialty, as agreed with the clinical lead of the specialty.

To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to other MDT staffs psychological work, as appropriate.

To provide professional, research and clinical supervision of assistant/graduate psychologists and, as appropriate, to contribute to the supervision of trainee clinical / counselling psychologists.

To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or counselling psychology, as agreed with the clinical lead of the specialty.

To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the patient group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.

Provide informal reflection/debriefing sessions to the GTD and other cancer MDTs, related ward staff, and other health care professionals, as agreed with service leads

Management, recruitment, policy and service development

To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of Psycho-oncology services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.

To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

To manage the workloads of assistant and graduate psychologists, within the framework of the team/services policies and procedures.

To be involved, as appropriate, in the short-listing and interviewing of assistant/graduate psychologists.

To attend and contribute to the regular professional meetings of the Psycho-oncology team and Clinical Health Psychology department and other relevant meetings as required.

We welcome pre-application inquiries and pre-interview visits, please contact Alex King on alex.king@nhs.net

Interviews will be held face-face at Charing Cross Hospital, Fulham Palace Road, London W6 8RF.

Person Specification TRAINING & QUALIFIC-ATIONS Essential

• o2:1 Undergraduate Degree in Psychology (BPS recognised) or other relevant subject at Doctoral-level qualification in counselling or clinical psychology, with current HCPC registration

Desirable

• o1st class degree
• oPostgraduate training: a)clinically relevant to psycho-oncology b)in clinical supervision c)in quality improvement, research and/or audit methodologies

Experience Essential

• oExperience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of patients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and inpatient settings
• oExperience of clinical practice in at least two psychological models relevant to psycho-oncology
• oExperience of working with a wide variety of patient groups, across the whole life-course and with presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity
• oExperience of clinical work in a multicultural context

Desirable

• oExperience in acute cancer and palliative care settingsExperience of psychological care over phone/video clinicExperience of teaching, training and/or supervision to multiprofessional healthcare teams

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

333-J-WE-0467-C