Band 8a Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist Birmingham

Job summary

Are you a compassionate and committed clinical psychologist who champions inclusivity and making healthcare more psychologically-informed? Would you like to join our service to help facilitate coping and adjustment to the impact of Motor Neurone Disease (MND) and improve the mental health and wellbeing of those affected by MND and teams supporting them?

We are seeking an enthusiastic and committed Clinical Psychologist to develop our new MND Psychology Service, delivering a pilot service funded by a generous grant from the MND Association that we will be seeking to be embed as a permanent service with your leadership, support and service development skills.

You will be welcomed by multidisciplinary colleagues across cancer services who highly value the expertise of psychological professionals, with the MND Care Centre in Birmingham being one of the biggest in the UK. You will also be a valued colleague in our Department of Psychological Services, housing significant clinical health and clinical neuropsychology expertise, as well as working alongside a network of similar postholders nationally.

If you thrive on challenge, creativity and a dynamic and supportive work environment, along with the opportunity to develop and shape the future of the service, this is the job for you.

Please contact Lead for Clinical Health Psychology (Sahil Suleman) on 0121 3714455 or email sahil.suleman@uhb.nhs.uk for further queries/information.

Main duties of the job

• To undertake highly specialist psychological assessment and treatment interventions to referred patients and to provide reports on the above.




• To hold and manage a caseload of patients with psychological difficulties related to or impacting on care within clinical health inpatient and/or outpatient psychological services.




• To undertake specific duties as requested, pertaining to clinical and service governance objectives including planning, data collection and analysis, report writing and presentation. This will necessitate the substantive use of IT equipment and software.




• To undertake the supervision of Clinical Psychology Trainees and to coordinate clinical placements within the team.




• To work as part of the wider Department of Psychological Services, engaging in sharing of clinical experience, professional development opportunities, shared governance and being an advocate for the profession across University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust.




• To undertake and contribute to teaching, training, supervision, health promotion, research and related activities of the service and affiliated organisations to the Trust as relevant to this post.




• To liaise with professional colleagues, operational managers, referral agencies, affiliated organisations and academic departments as relevant to this post.

About us

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust strives to have an inclusive culture where everyone feels like they belong, can thrive, knows that they add value and feels valued. We do this by developing compassionate and culturally competent leaders, being values driven in all that we do and by creating a welcoming and inclusive workplace that thrives on the diversity of our people. As such we want to attract and recruit talented individuals from all backgrounds, and for each of you to feel supported for the diversity you bring, to achieve your full potential. For those staff with a disability, including physical disability, long term health condition, mental health or neurodiverse condition, this also means being committed to making reasonable adjustments needed for you to carry out your role.

Job responsibilities

Please Note : For a detailed job description for this vacancy, please see attached Job Description

Qualifications

Essential

• Doctoral level training in clinical, counselling or health psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.




• HCPC registration as a Clinical Psychologist.

Desirable

• Training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training, health psychology and/or other fields of applied psychology that may be relevant in a clinical health psychology setting.




• Pre- or post-qualification training or additional qualifications in an accredited Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or other psychological therapy including CFT, ACT, DBT, MBT, brief psychodynamic interventions, systemic therapy, CAT, EMDR.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working as a qualified clinical/counselling/health psychologist, including demonstrable experience within people affected by physical illness.




• Experience of 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 and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in-patient and residential care settings including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.




• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and treatment.




• Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision.




• An understanding of the specific needs and difficulties of people affected by the condition or clinical issue for whom the psychology service for this post works with.




• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical/counselling/health psychology.




• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS.




• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists.

Desirable

• Experience of working in acute physical health settings.




• Experience of representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care (particularly physical health settings).




• Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.




• Experience of working with people affected by physical illness.




• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies and assessment methodologies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).




• Awareness of legislation and policy in relation to the clinical specialty and mental health




• Experience of short-term care provision e.g. brief assessments, short inpatient stays.

Additional Criteria

Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring prolonged periods of concentration.




• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, highly technical, and 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.




• 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, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours.




• Ability to identify, and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.




• Adaptable and able to work flexibly when required (e.g. in the light of changing service priorities).




• Capacity for tolerating frustration, change and high levels of demand with an ability to work effectively under pressure.




• Capacity to attend to and concentrate on clinical and research related information on a frequent basis (e.g. when undertaking client assessments or analysing statistical data) and to concentrate for prolonged periods of time on an at least occasional basis (e.g. when undertaking psychometric assessment).




• Capacity to frequently sit in constrained positions for client assessment and therapy.




• A commitment to the involvement of service users and carers on the development and delivery of mental health and other care services.

Desirable

• Experience of working within a multicultural framework.




• Experience of service development.

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.

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. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).