Skip to main content

This job has expired

Principal Clinical Psychologist

Employer
Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust
Location
London
Salary
£61,341 to £70,439 a year pro rata inc
Closing date
21 Mar 2023

View more

Profession
Psychologist, Community mental health nurse
Grade
Band 8B
Contract Type
Permanent
Hours
Part Time
We have two vacancies for an 8b Principal Clinical Psychologist:

0.6 WTE Greenwich Older People's Mental Health (OPMH) Services (Memorial Hospital) and

0.7 WTE Bexley OPMH Services (Bexleyheath Centre). Opportunities for additional/flexible hours can be discussed.

We are offering an exciting opportunity for an experienced psychologist to develop their skills in a senior role, taking on leadership tasks within Greenwich or Bexley OPMH Psychological Therapies, supporting provision in CMHT or Memory Services, and providing a psychological input to other OPMH Services. The successful candidate will have substantial NHS experience, including supervision and management of staff, proven skills in a range of clinical models, significant experience of working with older people and people with dementia, and of delivering care in secondary mental health care services.

Psychological Therapies are highly valued and embedded within our services, offering a broad range of evidence based psychological interventions and support to all OPMH services including our CMHT, Memory Service, Care Home Team, Inpatient Units, Mental Health Liaison Team and Continuing Care units.

The successful candidate will join well-established and friendly multi-disciplinary teams including professionals from psychiatry, nursing, social work, occupational therapy and admin alongside well-regarded psychological therapists.

Main duties of the job

Main duties of the job

This is a varied role, which includes providing specialist individual, family and group interventions, neuropsychological assessment, as well as contributing tothe therapeutic functions of the teams. You will support the teams with supervision and reflective practice, and will contribute to service planning and development, including attendance at relevant management meetings. You will be professionally accountable to the Greenwich or Bexley OPMH Head of Psychological Therapies, and specialist clinical supervision will be provided within the OPMH service. You will also be supported by teammanagers.

As well as service development and clinical governance roles, we welcome and encourage research and audit interests, including co-producing research with our service users through our co-led Research-Net group. Supervision and CPD are prioritised in the Trust, with a range of training and specialist supervision opportunities available. The Trust Psychological Therapists boast a variety of therapeutic skills including group analysis, psychotherapy, MBT, CBT, DBT, EMDR, art and family therapy, and neuropsychology, with access to the appropriate specialist supervision. We welcome and train students across professions. The successful candidate will be encouraged to consolidateand develop their skills and expertise in a friendly, supportive multi-professional, multi-agency context.

About us

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people living in South East London and Kent and to people in prison. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,000 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, children's centres, schools and people's homes. We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations across the London Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent and manage hospital sites including Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital in Woolwich as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are one of the largest providers of prison health services providing healthcare to prisoners across Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:
  • We're Kind
  • We're Fair
  • We Listen
  • We Care

Please note that Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust operate a probationary period. Further details are available on request.

Job description Job responsibilities

Please see Job Description and Personal Specification for full details of role requirements.

Clinical:
  • To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the Older Peoples Mental Health service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological 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 clients, family members and others involved in the clients care.
  • To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
  • 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 exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.
  • To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
  • To ensure that all members of the treating team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.
  • To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management, including responsibilities within the policies and clinical duties to safeguarding vulnerable adults and children.
  • To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the clients needs, coordinating the work of others involved with care, taking responsibility for arranging CPA reviews as required and communicating effectively with the client, his/her family and all others involved in the network of care, and to monitor progress during the course of multi-disciplinary interventions.
  • To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, complex information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care. . This will require being able to convey this to clients, families and colleagues with a range of understanding and knowledge so will require the ability to be flexible, adaptive and simple but yet retain a sophisticated understanding and approach. This communication is likely to take place in situations which are highly emotive and with people who also have cognitive problems such as dementia that impacts their understanding and retention.
  • To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team.


  • Teaching, training and supervision
  • To provide clinical placements for trainee clinical and/or counselling psychologists, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.
  • To provide post-qualification training (CPD) and clinical professional supervision to recently qualified clinical and/or counselling psychologists attached to the team.
  • To provide advice, consultation and training and clinical supervision to other members of the team for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve clients functioning.
  • To provide pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or counselling psychology as appropriate.
  • To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and post-graduate training and clinical supervision.
  • To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.
  • Management, recruitment, policy and service development.
  • To participate as a senior clinician in the development of a high quality, responsive and accessible service including advising both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
  • To exercise delegated responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to the service, whether in the form of additional qualified and unqualified graduate psychology staff, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of patients.
  • To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service/team.
  • To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistant, graduate, trainees and qualified clinical psychologists.
  • To provide day to day management of the psychological therapy staff within the OPMH service.



  • IT responsibilities.
  • To regularly enter and update information regarding clinical activity into the RiO clinical records system.
  • To be proficient in the use of IT for email, intranet and clinical record purposes. To be familiar with word processing, database and statistical packages, and to use such packages for complex data analysis as necessary. To use appropriate computer software to develop and create clinical or other service-related reports or documents.



  • Research and service evaluation
  • To take the psychology lead, as a senior clinician, in the evaluation, monitoring and development of the services operational policies, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit and ensuring incorporation of psychological frameworks for understanding and provision of high quality care.
  • To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other staff in the service.
  • To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.
  • To initiate project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve services to clients and their families.
  • General
  • To maintain registration with the Heath Professions Council as a Clinical Psychologist.
  • To ensure the development, maintenance and dissemination of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes.
  • To ensure the development and articulation of best practice in psychology within the service area and contribute across the service by exercising the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.
  • 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, Health Professions Council and Trust policies and procedures.
  • To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group and mental health.


  • Person Specification Qualification Essential
    • Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
    • Registration with the Health Professions Council as a Clinical Psychologist.
    Desirable
    • Post-doctoral traini

      Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

      277-5024442-CMH

    Get job alerts

    Create a job alert and receive personalised job recommendations straight to your inbox.

    Create alert