Clinical Psychologist (Band 8a) or Preceptorship (Band 7) in London

Permanent Post 0.9 (33.75 hours) opportunities for flexible working. We are seeking to recruit a skilled, innovative and compassionate Clinical or Counselling Psychologist to work across the acute in-patient and community mental health services in the London borough of Greenwich. Psychology's contribution in these settings is well established, and the link that this post provides for older people who are transferring between the in-patient and community setting has been shown to be effective and highly valued.

This role involves 2.5 days based in the Older People CMHT at Memorial Hospital, Greenwich, and 2 days on Shepherdleas, the Older People acute ward at Oxleas House, Queen Elizabeth Hospital. This post would suit someone who has a genuine interest in working therapeutically with this varied and rewarding client group. The post holder will join well established multi-professional teams and benefit from close working relationships with other on-site psychological therapists. This is an exciting opportunity to improve the service user's experience of the interface between hospital and community services and to provide innovation and leadership in the development of the transitional pathway for older people.

Main duties of the job

• The CMHT part of the post will include providing a specialist clinical service to clients and families, supervising both qualified and trainee psychologists, as required.
• You will join a dynamic and integrative team, in which different models of therapy are used creatively and according to our service users' needs.
• The ward provides an assessment and intervention service to older people with a range of mental health needs including dementia.
• This offers stimulating and fulfilling opportunities of working in a multi-modal trans-diagnostic approach with people with a wide variety of presentations and their families and carers.
• On the ward, you will have a pivotal role in supporting the wider inpatient team to think more psychologically and reflect on the wider organisation of care.
• There is a strong focus on indirect work through team formulation, reflective practice and staff training.
• We will support you to learn the skills you need to thrive in this role. Specialist clinical supervision will be provided.
• The post sits alongside other highly skilled and motivated psychological therapies staff who meet regularly to provide peer support, and develop/review the psychological service across the Acute and Crisis Pathway.

About us

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. 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 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children's centres, schools and people's homes. We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, 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.

Job responsibilities

• We strongly encourage applications from newly/recently qualified Clinical or Counselling Psychologists, or those close to obtaining qualified status, who will initially be offered a preceptorship position (Agenda for Change Band 7) and then supported to be eligible to move into the Band 8a role within 18-24 months of appointment/post-qualification, on the condition of meeting the competencies.
• Direct clinical work with service users and their carers/families involving assessment, formulation, and interventions with varied and complex presentations. This includes supporting people living with dementia and their carers.
• Develop, evaluate and deliver the therapeutic group programme on the ward, alongside colleagues from the wider therapies team.
• Engage in varied approaches to consultation to MDT e.g., team formulation, teaching sessions, joint working and supervision.
• Supervision of a trainee Clinical Psychologist (who is on placement across both settings) and an Assistant Psychologist (on the ward).
• Be a highly valued member of the Psychology team with opportunities to contribute to the development of the MDT and the service.

Person Specification

Training & Qualifications

• Essential: Doctoral level training in clinical psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology, as accredited by the BPS; HCPC registration.
• Desirable: Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.

Experience

• Essential: Experience of working in older people's mental health services, including with people with dementia and their carers; experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and inpatient, and assessment and intervention with patients with a wide variety of neurological deficits.
• Desirable: Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision; experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.

Knowledge & Skills

• Essential: Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi‑media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings; well‑developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Desirable: Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities, dementia etc).

Effort & Environment

• Essential: Ability to contain and work with organisational stress and able to contain the stress of others; ability to concentrate intensively for substantial periods of time during service user contact, teaching/supervision sessions, team meetings, preparing written work etc.
• Desirable: Genuine interest in working with Older People.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications.