Clinical or Counselling Psychologist in London

A unique and exciting opportunity has arisen for an enthusiastic and motivated clinical or counselling psychologist to work one day a week in the Camden Diabetes Integrated Practice Unit (IPU) as part of the Community Diabetes Service. This post is a key member of the IPU Team and has been successfully delivered one day a week. It is important for the potential candidate to be available on a Wednesday, which is key to role to attend the team MDT. The post holder will also work across two sites Peckwater Health Centre and Belsize Priory/Abbey Road Centre undertaking joint consultations with other team members, 1-2-1 clinics or groups.

The IPU works as a diverse multidisciplinary team in primary, secondary and tertiary care to design care plans that meet the needs of people with Diabetes.

Main duties of the job:

• The postholder will use their knowledge and skills to provide a range of interventions to ameliorate psychological distress and enhance physical and physiological wellbeing in service users.
• This role is embedded fully into the multi-disciplinary teams of the service and will provide psychological expertise to the team as well as working alongside medical and allied health professionals across a range of contexts.
• We are looking for an HCPC registered Clinical or Counselling Psychologist with experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of a wide variety of client groups across the full range of care settings.

About us: Camden Health Partners Limited (CHP) works to support improved health and wellbeing outcomes for the people of Camden through their General Practice and delivers direct patient care services particularly aspects of the urgent care pathway working with Acute Trusts and is an integral member of the Camden Diabetes Care collaborative. The company also has a charitable arm called Camden ANCHOR.

As a clinically led organisation, our focus is on improving patient outcomes and patient experience for the money we have available. Our priorities and work plan for this year is set out in our business plan that will be shared with you during induction. We are committed to partnership working with our provider partners, member practices, primary care networks and patients to deliver our plans.

This role is entitled to an NHS pension. Annual leave starts at 27 days rising to 29 days after 5 years and 33 days after 10 years following proof of NHS service.

Job responsibilities:

• The Camden Diabetes Integrated Practice Unit (IPU) works as part of a diverse multi-disciplinary team in primary, secondary, and tertiary care to design care plans that meet the needs of people with Diabetes.
• The team serves patients registered with a GP and Primary Care Networks in the Camden borough.
• Diabetes can have a significant impact on the quality of someone's life and the financial implications on the NHS.
• The Team aims to optimise health and wellbeing, reducing complications and prevent unscheduled hospital visits.
• The Community Diabetes Team offers time-limited input for Camden patients who require specialist support.
• The post holder will be employed by Camden Health Partners and will work in the Camden Community Diabetes IPU based at St Pancras Hospital.

JOB PURPOSE:

This role is a unique opportunity to provide high quality psychological care to an award-winning, forward thinking diabetes service in which psychological insights and care are highly valued and considered of central importance to the strategic objectives of the service.

The clinical/counselling psychologist role is highly valued and embedded fully into the multi-disciplinary teams of the service. The post-holder will be expected to work alongside medical and allied health professional colleagues across a range contexts, including but not limited to; single and multi-professional outpatient consultations, home visits, and multi-disciplinary team meetings.

A key part of the role is liaising with other agencies such as mental health teams, social services, GPs.

The post holder will:

• Use their knowledge and skills to provide a range of interventions to ameliorate psychological distress and enhance physical and psychological wellbeing in service users.
• Support the psychological care offered to service users by other members of the multi-disciplinary team by providing consultation and training, including but not limited to the provision of psychological expertise within multi-disciplinary team meetings.
• Potentially provide training and support for the design and implementation of interventions to change health-related behaviour at all levels of care, including initiatives to encourage population, community and individual level change, and encompassing system, practitioner and service-user change.
• Provide advice and support for colleagues and patients to maintain clinical excellence, improve diabetes services, reduce the number of admissions, length of stay in hospital and to promote patient self-care and improved quality of life.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• To provide highly developed specialist psychological assessments of patients based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological 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.
• To formulate plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a patient's psychological difficulties based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the patients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of 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 the Diabetes Service, individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
• To make highly skilled evaluations and decisions about psychological treatment options.