Clinical Psychologist | Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

Clinical Psychologist | Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

Company

Company: CNWL NHS Foundation Trust

The post holder will serve people with learning disabilities in the London Borough of Harrow, within the Community Learning Disabilities Service.

This is an integrated health multidisciplinary service which works collaboratively with the local social care provider who support adults with learning disabilities and access mainstream services to ensure that outcomes are met.

The post holder will contribute to the clinical psychology service including development and implementation of specialist psychological interventions.

A range of therapeutic approaches are utilised including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and third-wave approaches, narrative and systemic approaches and Positive Behaviour Support (PBS).

The post holder will play key role and contribute to the contributing to the eligibility diagnostic pathway whereby consultation, training and supervision is provided to other members within the multidisciplinary team.

The postholder will manage their individual defined caseload including complex cases independently, evidencing problem solving and clinical reasoning skills in line with evidence based and client-centred principles.

You will be given an opportunity to be involved in clinical research and development where appropriate.

• 1.

Ensure a high standard of clinical care for the clients and those of more junior staff providing a comprehensive and appropriate psychology service to clients, families and carers

• 2.

Play a key role in the advanced assessment and treatment of clients who may have acute, chronic or complex presentation and determine clinical diagnosis and intervention required

• 3. Assess clients’ needs and direct to other services as appropriate
• 4. Maintain records as an autonomous practitioner
• 5. Communicate effectively with health and social care professionals and outside agencies regarding client care and progress
• 6. Communicate with other members of the Team regarding policies, service development and management plans
• 7. Undertake a significant clinical caseload working under supervision in collaboration with other agencies and health and social care professionals

CNWL is recognised locally, nationally and internationally for providing high quality, innovative healthcare.

We aim to employ in line with our values, our experts are frequently called upon to contribute to national health strategy & policy, & many models of our care have been adapted for use in other countries.

• With us, you will get -
• A Trust committed to staff personal development, with a trust wide culture change and leadership programme that has staff wellbeing at its core.
• An opportunity to work for one of the top 10 NHS employers
• Variety of work
• Access to a variety of CPD opportunities.

As a Trust we are committed to investing in our staff through a range of initiatives, both profession-specific and organisation wide.

Psychological professions staff are able to access a range of trust-wide CPD initiatives.

We have partnered with Bespoke & Contextual Consulting to provide some of the profession specific CPD, alongside additional CPD sessions we commission as part of CNWL CPD programme for Psychological Professions.

Clinical

• Responsible for offering comprehensive specialist assessments to adults with learning disabilities, their families and paid carers when the need for psychological assessment is indicated and use this as the basis for establishing and evaluating therapeutic interventions.

This includes carrying out specialist cognitive psychometric assessments as necessary and interpret the results of these, in order to make appropriate formulations and recommendations for interventions.

• Interpret the results of these assessments and to make appropriate psychological formulations, judgements and recommendations.

This process involves careful consideration, drawing on specialist psychological knowledge of theory and models to make sense of complex facts or situations.

• Work autonomously in a variety of work contexts, including work in the community which may at times involve working with clients with complex needs in their own home.

This includes face to face sessions with individual clients and families.

• Work effectively and reflectively requiring sustained attention and concentration for considerable periods of time
• Verbally communicate highly complex and sensitive information often requiring empathy and reassurance in potentially hostile or highly emotive environments.
• Accountable for one's own professional actions and to work within the clinical psychology code of practice and ethics, and Trust policies and procedures.
• Communicate complex information and formulations to a range of different people, including families and carers, service users, and professionals, including other psychologists and other disciplines, both within the team and outside agencies.
• Adapt verbal and non-verbal communication to facilitate clients’ understanding.
• Liaise appropriately with all agencies involved and keep them informed of relevant information and recommended guidelines necessary to provide high standards of care for clients, within the recommended limits of confidentiality.
• Provide a clinical service to clients from a range of minority ethnic populations and provide an appropriate specialist person-centred approach of care while considering language, religion, cultural beliefs and customs and adapt assessment, formulation and intervention as appropriate.
• Communicate across language and cultural barriers, jointly working with and offering debriefing and/or supervision to interpreters as required.
• Plan and prioritise own clinical workload and to work with multi- disciplinary colleagues around complex cases, providing this in a setting which is most appropriate to the client and/or service needs.
• Responsible for recording, monitoring and reporting on clinical work and communicating complex clinical information to a variety of recipients (e. g. service users, families, carers, other professionals, and statutory and voluntary organisations) orally, in writing and electronically, and as specified by the service.
• CLINICAL: Indirect
• Use a broad theoretical knowledge base and specialist clinical skills to develop and support the psychological skills of other staff members, professionals paid and unpaid carers via the development and delivery of teaching, training, supervision, support and consultation.
• Responsible for offering specialised advice, guidance and support to staff in the joint community team for people with learning disabilities, to staff teams in statutory and voluntary organisations and family carers of people with learning disabilities.
• Responsible for providing a psychological perspective/psychological expertise for service or team activities, including clinical care, team or service dynamics, team or service organisation, in a range of settings, e. g. case discussions and team meetings.
• Provide advice, guidance and support, both formally and informally, to staff, families and carers.
• Responsible for developing and maintaining knowledge of local resources and developing working relationships with relevant statutory, voluntary and community groups and organisations.
• Receive regular clinical management supervision in accordance with good practice guidelines to ensure high quality work, to engage in the Individual Performance Review process and continuing professional development, and generally work within a clinical governance framework.

Administration

• Plan and prioritise own clinical workload and to work with multi- disciplinary colleagues around complex cases, providing this in a setting which is most appropriate to the client and/or service needs.
• Responsible for recording, monitoring and reporting on clinical work and communicating clinical information to a variety of recipients (e. g. service users, families, carers, other professionals, and statutory and voluntary organisations) orally, in writing and electronically, and as specified by the service.

Also to maintain client records as an autonomous practitioner.

Management

• Contribute, as a member of relevant working groups, to the development, implementation and evaluation of the Team
• Implement Trust and local policies.
• Organise own day-to day activities, plan and prioritise own clinical and non-clinical workload.
• Identify, propose and lead changes to work practices and procedures in own area of work and join working groups leading on service wide and specialism developments as appropriate.

Human Resources

• Supervise the work of assistant psychologists and trainee psychologists were applicable.
• Responsibility for clinical supervision of trainee clinical psychologists (once gained appropriate post qualification experience and with appropriate training), teaching and training of staff of other disciplines in the wider team and in other statutory and voluntary sector agencies in the wider community.
• To participate in Trust appraisal and be committed to ongoing continuing professional development including participation in further specialist training as agreed with supervisor/head of department.
• Develop and deliver, jointly with other psychologists where appropriate, teaching activities for clinical psychology doctoral training programmes and in-service training programmes within the team and the Trust.

Performance and Quality

• Ensure documentation and care plans are comprehensive and of the highest standard in line with Trust Policy.
• Record relevant information as consistent with Trust record keeping policy.
• Collate and report clinical information.
• Enter clinical information as required into local and Trust electronic information systems.
• Maintain and update research knowledge and skills.
• Develop and implement service related and/or other academic research projects.
• Assist in the monitoring, review and evaluation of the learning disabilities psychology team, the community team, and in conjunction with other professionals, the work of teams or facilities.
• Participate in the evaluation of services, including designing audits, collecting and monitoring data as required.
• Formulate and undertake service related research and audit and to support other staff in research activities.
• Undertake service-related research as agreed by Lead Psychologist
• Disseminate findings through publication where possible

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
• This advert closes on Wednesday 12 Aug 2026
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