Clinical Psychologist - Ampthill/Mid-Bedfordshire

ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental and health care, innovation and improvement. So it is a very exciting time for you to come and work for us. Our mission is to make a positive difference to people\’s lives by improving 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.

Job overview

We have an opportunity for a Clinical or Counselling Psychologist to join us in our mental health services in Mid-Bedfordshire, based in Ampthill. You will join us in our new multi-agency blended primary/secondary care MDTs which includes the Principal Psychologist, Psychologists, CBT therapist, CAPs and Assistant Psychologists. This means there are opportunities to work with local mental health networks, service users and VCSE organisations in work streams to shape the future of psychologically-informed mental health care in Mid-Bedfordshire.

Newly qualified psychologists could be appointed at band 7 under a preceptorship to work towards requirements for band 8a, subject to satisfactory completion of preceptorship process.

If you would like to discuss the opportunity before applying, please do make contact with us.

Main duties of the job

The post-holder will provide specialist evidence-based psychological assessment, formulation and intervention for people with a range of complex mental health needs, including individual, couple/family and group interventions. They will possess an enthusiasm for multidisciplinary team working and the skills to help steer the team to trauma-informed psychological understanding of their clients and the development of psychologically informed services.

The team values the role of Psychologists highly and, as such, the role is multifaceted and includes consultation, teaching, and supervision roles, as well as active involvement in quality improvement projects, staff support initiatives and wider Trust initiatives. We are therefore looking for someone with good knowledge and skills within these domains, and someone who is ready to join an innovative and efficient service. You will also have opportunities to supervise Assistant Psychologists and Trainee Psychologists.

We have a good track record in providing therapies training and CPD to support development in clinical and leadership roles. In ELFT we are passionate about our Quality Improvement approach and psychologists are key players in many projects. We have a thriving therapies workforce in the Trust with opportunities for learning and supporting each other.

Working for our organisation

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

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please could you kindly refer to the job description and person specification attached to this vacancy.

Person specification

Education/ Qualification

Essential criteria

• Doctorate in Clinical/Counselling Psychology or equivalence and able to demonstrate eligibility for BPS CPsychol (Chartered Psychologist) and HCPC registration as a Practitioner Psychologist

Desirable criteria

• Further training or qualifications in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.
• Quality Improvement Training.
• Clinical supervision training for doctoral psychology trainees.

Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the range of care settings, including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the treat of physical abuse.
• Experience of providing teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision
• Experience in working in multidisciplinary settings and representing a psychological perspective in teams and services.

Desirable criteria

• Experience of professional management of qualified and pre-qualified clinical psychologists.
• Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience in the recruitment of psychology staff.
• Experience in contributing to service development, redesign and improvements in secondary mental health services

Knowledge & Skills

Essential criteria

• Doctoral level knowledge of clinical psychology including highly developed knowledge of lifespan developmental psychology, models of psychopathology, psychometrics and neuropsychology.
• Able to draw upon a broad theoretical knowledge base in the analysis of highly complex facts and situations, requiring sustained and intense concentration, to arrive at appropriate formulation and compare and select from a range of treatment options. Skills in two or more distinct psychological therapies.
• An in depth knowledge and skills in applying clinical risk assessment and management in own and others\’ clinical caseload.

Desirable criteria

• Highly developed knowledge of the theory and delivery of specialised psychological practice relevant to a secondary mental health setting (e.g. psychosis, personality disorder, complex trauma).

Making Things Better

Quality Improvement is a key part of our work to improve our services and refine how we do things. We have a global reputation for our quality improvement work and we don\’t stand still! So we offer a fantastic opportunity for our staff to learn, lead and contribute towards improving our services.

We launched our Five Year Strategy in April 2018, which identified four main strategic outcomes to improve: population health outcomes, experience of care, staff experience and improve value. This complements the NHS Long Term Strategy and sets out our direction of travel.

Our Community

We provide a wide range of community health and mental health inpatient services to children, young people, adults of working age, and older adults in The City of London, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Bedfordshire and Luton. We also provide psychological therapy services to the London Borough of Richmond, and provide Forensic services to the whole of North East London. We provide services in urban and rural settings, sometimes in our inpatient units, but mostly in the community close to where people live. Integrated care is key in making the best use of resources and providing effective care.

Aiming High

We were rated \’Outstanding\’ by the CQC in 2016, were proud to be rated \’Outstanding\’ again in 2018 and continue to be rate \’Outstanding\’ in 2021.. We were named in the HSJ\’s Top 10 best places to work in healthcare and were voted Provider Trust of the Year in 2018.

Staff and Service Users United

We strive to ensure that staff feel valued by the Trust and as they are truly pivotal in delivering better outcomes for our patients and service users. Our aspiration is to help to make ELFT the best place to work. This Trust is clinician-led and provides the highest possible level of clinical expertise throughout its services. We pride ourselves on our service user involvement. A service user will be on your assessment centre and interview panel if you are invited to meet us.

We especially welcome people with lived experience of health difficulties, with insight and understanding of different backgrounds, cultures and lifestyles in our population as we believe that this will equip staff to deliver a high standard of care to our service users and patients.

Diversity

ELFT Is committed to being a diverse organisation and our workforce is reflective of the population and communities we serve. We believe that having colleagues with a range of backgrounds and life experiences enriches and adds value to the outcomes we have set out to achieve. Having partnered and endorsed by organisations who are representative and experts in various areas of equality and diversity, we can ensure we are meeting the pre-set standards all the way from recruitment stage throughout the career journey of our employees by being accessible, having fair inclusive practices and a host of staff networks to support, nurture and celebrate our valued staff in the workplace.

Other reasons to apply

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that\’s job share, part time or another flexible pattern.

As part of the relocation scheme we presently have, the Trust could support you with offering up to £10,000 for removal and associated expenses. This is subject to change and terms and conditions apply.

What Next?

If you like the sound of ELFT, don\’t waste a moment. We sometimes close adverts early if there is a high response, so apply now!

As part of our recruitment process we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS. We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same..

If you do not hear from us within four weeks of the closing date, please consider that you have not been shortlisted on this occasion. You must provide professional email addresses for all referees as we will contact them as soon as an offer has been made. Please note we do not request references prior to interviews. All applications made through NHS Jobs account will be processed by TRAC System. Please note that some emails may go to your spam/junk mailbox so make sure you check this regularly.

Find us online at www.elft.nhs.uk | Find us on Facebook | Follow us on @NHS_ELFT

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

• JD and PS for 8a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist (PDF, 824.5KB)
• ELFT at a glance (PDF, 151.0KB)
• Staff Benefits (PDF, 7.1MB)
• ELFT Strategy (PDF, 153.5KB)
• Trust Demographic Information (PDF, 1.5MB)

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