Senior Clinical or Counselling Psychologist (XR08) in Leeds

Senior Clinical or Counselling Psychologist (XR08)

We have an exciting full time opportunity to work as a Senior Clinical Psychologist or Counselling Psychologist in Staff Psychological Support at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, to provide an extremely important and valued Staff Psychological Support Service to Adult Critical Care. Staff within Critical Care are exposed to distressing events on a regular basis, as well as facing the usual demands of working in the NHS. Staff Psychological Support has been well established in Adult Critical Care since the COVID-19 pandemic, with staff being enthusiastic and welcoming of psychological approaches to staff wellbeing.

The successful candidate will work alongside another psychologist, in consultation with leaders in Critical Care, to offer a range of individual, group and service level interventions to respond to the needs of the workforce. The post holder will also be supported by the Trust Wide Staff Psychological Support team.

The post is advertised as a Band 8a position, however we would consider a Band 7 preceptorship post for the right candidate. Please indicate in your application if you are interested in a Band 7 to 8a preceptorship. In addition we value and support staff work life balance and therefore part time hours will be considered.

Expected ShortlistingDate

14/10/2025

Planned InterviewDate

21/10/2025

Main duties of the job

The post offers an excellent opportunity to gain experience in the field of Staff Support and to develop a variety of skills, working with leaders within the Trust to provide an effective Staff Support service. Adult Critical Care is based across both St James Hospital and Leeds General Infirmary. A visible present and across site working is needed to promote the Staff Psychological Support service and engage staff.

The successful candidate will provide individual level support to staff members within Adult Critical Care, as well as consultation for leaders. There will be opportunities to facilitate reflective practice and to develop bespoke formulation driven team interventions and training. In addition, the postholder will support the post event support pathway within Adult Critical Care, developing the pathway and facilitating individual and group debriefs following distressing events at work.

About us

The Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust is a large organisation and Adult Critical Care has a large workforce of over 600 staff. Importantly they are enthusiastic about supporting staff, and engaged with psychological approaches to wellbeing. As such, they are welcoming and keen to work with a psychologist to continue to provide staff support services.

In addition, the wider Staff Psychological Support service is made up of Psychologists, Counsellors, Assistant Psychologists and Trainee Psychologists, which sits within the large Clinical and Health Psychology Department. The department is extremely welcoming and supportive, with a breadth of experience and skills, with strong links to the regional clinical training programme.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals is committed to our process of redeploying at risk members of our existing workforce to new roles. As such, all our job adverts are subject to this policy and we reserve the right to close, delay or remove adverts while this process is completed. If you do experience a delay in the shortlisting stage of the recruitment cycle, please bear with us while this process is completed, and contact the named contact if you have any questions.

Job responsibilities

Toprovide a qualified Clinical or Counselling Psychology service to NHS staff members and teams, across all sites and sectors of care by:

1. Providing highly specialist psychological assessment and interventions.
2. Offering advice and consultation on service users\' psychological wellbeing needs.
3. Using research skills for audit, policy and service development and leading on research projects within the area served by the team/service.
4. Working autonomously in the execution of these duties and within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the Psychology Teams, Department and Trust policies and procedures.

PRINCIPAL DUTIES & AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

Clinical:

1. To provide specialist psychological assessments 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 staff members and appropriate others.
2. To formulate, develop and implement plans for psychological interventions to address staff member and team wellbeing, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of presenting needs, and employing evidence-based methods.
3. To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions within and across teams employed individually and in systems, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
4. To evaluate and make decisions about intervention options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical, systemic and developmental processes that have shaped the individual or group.
5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of service users.
6. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals and stakeholders, contributing directly to staff members mental health and workplace wellbeing.
7. To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychological understanding of staff members and teams occupational wellbeing needs.
8. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual service users and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
9. To act as care co-ordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans under enhanced CPA (or its equivalent in the acute physical health care setting) including patients, their carers referring agents and others involved in the network of care.
10. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and intervention plans of service users under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

Teaching, training, and supervision

1. To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a more senior clinical/counselling psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.
2. To gain additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to clinical/counselling psychology and the service (as agreed with the Lead Psychologist and Head of Department) up to two sessions per week.
3. To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to other MDT staff psychological work as appropriate.
4. To provide professional and clinical supervision of doctoral trainee and graduate/assistant psychologists.
5. To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical, health and/or counselling psychology, as appropriate.
6. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.

Management, recruitment, policy and service development

1. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the team, specialty and department operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
2. To advise both the service and the Lead Psychologist on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
3. To manage the workloads of assistant graduate psychologists and doctoral trainee clinical psychologists, within the framework of the team/specialty and Department policies and procedures.
4. To be involved, as appropriate, in the short listing and interviewing of assistant/graduate psychologists.

Research and service evaluation:

1. To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
2. To undertake, as a major component of the post, appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research, and to disseminate appropriate material via presentation and publication.
3. To lead on research projects within the area served by the team/service.
4. To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.
5. To provide appropriate research supervision of doctoral trainees and graduate assistant psychologists.

Person Specification

Experience

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of patients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in-patient settings.
• Experience across a variety of patient groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity, maintaining a high degree of professionalism.
• Experience of teaching, training and supervision.
• Experience of working in medical multidisciplinary teams and offering systemic interpretations to have impact on the team functioning in patient care.
• Experience of delivering staff psychological support or working within an occupational health setting.
• Experience of working with medical multidisciplinary teams and supervising healthcare staff.
• Experience of working with psychological trauma.

Qualifications

• Postgraduate doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology, as accredited by the British Psychological Society.
• Further training in a specialised area of clinical practice through formal post-doctoral training (diploma or equivalent) or a combination of specialist short courses.
• Completion of (or completion by the time of starting the post) formal clinical supervisor training sufficient to be able to supervise doctoral trainees.
• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.

Other Criteria

• Able to fulfil Occupational Health requirements for the post (with reasonable adjustments if necessary), including clearance on blood borne viruses in compliance with Trust Policy.

Skills and Behaviours

• Ability to exercise the full clinical responsibility for patients\' psychological care and treatment within the clinical specialty and to co-ordinate the psychological care provided by others.
• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice.
• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to patients, families, and colleagues.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
• Able to provide emotional support and professional mentorship to multi-disciplinary team members.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies for specific difficult to treat groups OR advanced level knowledge of the theory and practice of specialist psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the patient group and mental health.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

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 (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.