Assistant Psychologist | East London NHS Foundation Trust

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an assistant psychologist to play a key role in delivering psychological support to older adults, people with dementia and carers in Newham. The post holder will be working to provide a high quality, person‑centred and culturally sensitive service to older adults presenting with a wide range of mental health difficulties including dementia, and their families and carers, helping to alleviate psychological distress and promote psychological well‑being in the community.

Working under the guidance of a qualified psychologist, the post holder will draw on understandings of psychological development to contribute to assessments and psychological interventions, including groups, that optimise successful ageing and adjustment to later life.

We are looking for someone who is motivated and passionate about the mental health needs of older adults and people with dementia. The post‑holder will join a well‑established and supportive multidisciplinary team. We welcome applications from individuals who will bring enthusiasm and flexibility to this role, and in return can offer a stimulating and supportive work environment, as part of a new career pathway.

Responsibilities

1. Draw on understandings of psychological development to contribute to assessments and psychological interventions that optimise successful ageing and adjustment to later life for service users and their carers, including improving cognitive health, emotional wellbeing, and social connection.
2. Assist in planning and delivering psychological assessments, psychological formulations, and delivering psychological interventions including psychotherapeutic groups across the borough.
3. Collate outcome measures of different psychological interventions and work as part of the MDT.
4. This work will be under the direction of a qualified psychological professional who will retain clinical responsibility for clinical work carried out.

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.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

Patient & Clinical Care

• Implement individual engagement and support work based around psychological principles or care programmes under close clinical supervision.
• Provide and receive sensitive, distressing and emotional information in relation to mental health issues.
• Communicate across language and cultural barriers.
• Be responsible, under clinical supervision, for recording, monitoring and reporting on own clinical work and communicating complex clinical information to a variety of recipients, e.g. service users, families and carers, other professionals, orally, in writing and/or electronically.
• Support the psychological skills of other professionals across the team via the delivery of teaching, training, and support relating to specific psychological interventions and demonstration of own duties.
• Ensure that the BPS Guidelines for professional practice are followed appropriately.
• In common with all psychological professionals, receive regular clinical supervision in accordance with good practice guidelines.

Administration

• Be responsible for maintaining clinical and research databases relevant to the service, including co‑ordinating referrals, monitoring their allocation and engagement with the service, recording details of packages of care and monitoring the clinical review process.
• Enter clinical information as required into local and Trust electronic information systems.
• Maintain databases for the service and advise on and implement developments to those databases.
• Use relevant statistical packages to analyse recorded data.

Management

• Be responsible for maintaining knowledge of local resources and working relationships with relevant statutory, voluntary and community groups and organisations.
• Plan and prioritise own workload, under the management of the supervising Clinical Psychologist.
• Comments on development proposals or policies on request.
• Implement Trust and local policies.
• Record and report on personally‑generated clinical information.

Job Description Agreement

This job description is intended as a guide to the main duties of the post and is not intended to be a prescriptive document. Duties and base of work may change to meet the needs of the service or because of the introduction of new technology. This job description may be reviewed from time to time and changed, after consultation with the postholder.

This advert closes on Tuesday 4 Nov 2025.