Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist

Go back South West London and St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust

Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist

The closing date is 05 November 2026

Are you a compassionate Clinical or Counselling Psychologist looking to make a meaningful impact in your community? Join us in a role where you'll be valued, supported, and inspired to grow. We are looking for an experienced and dedicated Clinical or Counselling Psychologist to join the Richmond Psychology & Psychotherapies service based in the Twickenham Integrated Recovery Hub.

If you are passionate about working towards improving services, are keen to have your voice heard and want to bring more innovation and creativity to your work, then this role would be ideal for you. If you join our team, you can make a real difference in the lives of those struggling with complex mental health challenges, providing essential support to foster recovery and well-being.

Main duties of the job

The role is dynamic and will require you to attend multidisciplinary meetings and to offer supervision, consultation, and training to clinicians within the wider MDT team.

You will contribute to the delivery of evidence-based psychological therapies for severe and enduring mental health conditions, including psychosis & bipolar, personality disorders, and complex mood, anxiety disorders & PTSD. We value innovative practices to support our service users, continually evolving to meet the needs of our community.

You will utilise your research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service.

Agile and flexible working:

We understand the importance of work-life balance and are committed to supporting flexible working arrangements to help our team thrive both personally and professionally. As one of the few Trusts in London we are proud to offer flexible and agile working as part of our new ways of working, and we are happy to talk flexible working at the interview stage.

About us

We are Proud to Belong at South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust.

We have expert services, a rich history and a clear commitment to providing the best quality care for those with mental ill-health. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as 'good' - we aspire to be 'outstanding'.

This is a great time to join us. We are transforming the way we care for our communities to support our mission of Making Life Better Together. We have built two brand new mental health facilities at Springfield University Hospital, which are amongst the best in the world. More developments are planned across our sites and services as we invest a further £120m to upgrade and modernise our estate by 2027.

We are inclusive and diverse and strive to be actively anti racist. We want to attract people from all backgrounds and experiences to enrich the work we do together. We are proud to co-produce and involve our local communities in all that we do.

We offer flexible working, career development and a variety of benefits to enable a positive, welcoming environment in which our people and their careers can thrive.

Come and join our inclusive teams and help our patients on their recovery journey.

.Unless expressly stated in the job advert the role is not subject to sponsorship, please be advised that all offers of employment are subject to evidence of right to work in the UK.

Job responsibilities

To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the clients care.

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients 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 and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.

To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving this client group of people with severe and enduring mental health problems.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans under enhanced CPA including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in job applications

If you have used AI to support the preparation of your application, please briefly indicate how it was used within your supporting statement or application form.

Please remember, your application is your opportunity to tell us about your skills, experience and motivation for the role. We encourage applicants to complete their application and supporting statement in their own words wherever possible. We recognise that AI tools can be helpful in supporting accessibility, and for improving spelling, grammar and structure.

Applications that rely heavily on AI-generated content can become generic and fail to accurately reflect an applicant's individual experience. Applications that clearly demonstrate your own voice, reflections and experiences are often the most effective and help us better understand your suitability for the role.

Please be aware that information provided in your application and supporting statement may be explored further during the selection process. It is important that all applications accurately represent your own knowledge, skills and experience.

Person Specification

Training & Qualifications

• Doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS including models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology (for Clinical Psychologists), two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology ; OR alternative training outside of the UK that is recognised by the Health & Care Professions Council leading to registration in the UK as a Clinical or Counselling psychologist
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists
• To be registered with the Health & Care Professions Council under the appropriate domain specific title
• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology

Experience

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and inpatient settings
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse
• Demonstrate further specialist training/experience through having received a minimum of 50 hours clinical supervision while working as a specialist clinical/counselling psychologist or as a specialist cognitive behaviour therapist (significant demonstrable experience) or an alternative agreed by the Head of Psychology and Psychotherapies
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts
• Experience of working as part of a multi-disciplinary team

Knowledge & Skills

• 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 clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
• 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
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. dual diagnosis including people experiencing psychosis with personality disorder, substance misuse, learning disability, neurological dysfunction, additional disabilities etc)
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies, including cognitive-behavioural therapy

Other

• 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 in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour
• Personal experience of mental health problems

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.

South West London and St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust

£63,665 to £70,887 a yearper annum inclusive of Outer London HCAS

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