Highly Specialist Practitioner Psychologist in Cancer | Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

The post will provide a psychologically informed approach and service as part of the Psycho-oncology Support Team (POST) within Dimbleby Cancer Care, for cancer and palliative care patients and significant involved others at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals. The post will be based at Guy’s hospital site (with possibility of some working on St Thomas’ site), and is suitable for someone starting out in their career, or is keen to specialise in cancer and palliative care.

You will provide highly specialist psychological assessment and therapy, offering advice and consultation on clients’ psychological care to medical teams, and work autonomously within professional practice guidelines and the overall framework of the psychological support team’s policies and procedures. You will see outpatients, and significantly connected others.

In addition to an individual caseload, you will have an opportunity to contribute to the delivery and evaluation of a psychological skills training programme to oncology staff across Guys and St Thomas hospitals. You will also work closely with a senior practitioner on development of our patient involvement pathway; which will proactively seek meaningful involvement of the people and communities that we serve, value peoples’ lived experience, and promote equality and diversity in access to our services.

Our clinical services draw upon multiple therapeutic approaches including a number of psychotherapy models, CBT, systemic, and third wave approaches. You will provide supervision to our AHP and medical colleagues. Forming creative, compassionate and collaborative relationships within POST, Dimbleby and our wider cancer service colleagues is key.

Dimbleby Cancer Care has been providing a service to people with cancer, and their friends and families for 20 years at Guy’s and St Thomas’s including at Queen Mary Hospital cancer Centre at Sidcup. The service includes, Information team, Welfare Benefits advice, Complementary Therapy and Psychological therapy, support and education. Support is provided for both outpatients and inpatients, and to those bereaved, and who have received support from our palliative care teams at Guy’s and St Thomas.’ As well as direct clinical work we also provide staff training, supervision and support.

The Psychology Department has a large group of applied psychologists working across many areas of specialisms within both paediatric and adult populations. The psychology department has Clinical, Counselling, Health, Educational Psychologists and Neuropsychologists. There is well-organised professional support from other applied psychologists working for the Trust. The Psychology Department is within the Therapies directorate that includes Speech and Language Therapists; Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists.

• To provide specialist psychological/therapeutic assessment and therapeutic intervention with people with a cancer or palliative diagnosis, their family members and others involved in the client’s care.
• To collaboratively use psychological/therapy resource and knowledge to inform a timely response to adjustment and distress within a cancer and palliative care context.
• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological/therapeutic interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams.
• To evaluate and make decisions regarding options for a person/couple/family following a therapeutic assessment.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, ongoing therapy and discharge of clients, liaising with other professionals when and if necessary.
• To provide specialist advice guidance and consultation to other professionals regarding psychological approaches to managing a person’s care.
• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.
• To employ knowledge of safeguarding, undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and families, and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• To communicate in a respectful, considered and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients and to monitor progress within a multi-disciplinary context.

Teaching, training, and supervision:

• To receive regular clinical professional supervision in line with professional regulatory body.
• To gain any additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to the post and/or the service (as agreed with the professional psychology manager).
• To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to placement trainees according to your level of post qualification.
• To provide professional and clinical supervision of junior colleagues where appropriate.
• To contribute to the various patient support programmes across the cancer directorate.
• To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.

Management and service development:

• To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the team’s operational policies and services.

General:

• To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the post holder’s professional and service managers.
• To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychological practice across the service, by continuing to develop competencies, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the post holders therapy field and related disciplines.
• To maintain 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.
• 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.