Specialist Senior Clinical Psychologist

We want talented and enthusiastic people from all backgrounds to join #TeamMWL, with us you can learn, grow and develop yourself and your career, realising your true ambitions and aspirations. Whatever you’re looking for in your career, you’ll find it here at MWL.

Main area: Psychologist

Grade: NHS AfC: Band 8a

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Mon-Fri between 8.30am and 5pm)

Job ref: 409-S8043850

Site: NWSIC

Town: Southport

Salary: £57,528 - £64,750 per annum

Salary period: Yearly

Closing: 22/11/2026 23:59

Job overview: This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a newly forming psychology team developed for the North West Spinal Injuries Centre. You will work clinically with spinal injuries patients in line with national spinal standards, onto the inpatient ward, have opportunity to support outreach work, outpatients and work with spinal MDT colleagues to increase the psychological mindedness of the whole service. You will be part of a broader network of multi-specialist Psychologists across MWL who pride themselves on being high quality and dynamic. Southport is a lovely place to live and work. A seaside town with thriving businesses and a great welcoming and friendly culture. Our psychology workforce are all trained in EMDR and the successful candidate will be offered the opportunity to be trained in EMDR too once these pathways are established for our spinal injury service users. Interviews will take place w/c 30th November, 2026.

Main duties of the job:

• To provide a highly specialist clinical psychology service to inpatients within the NWSIC, across the acute and rehabilitation wards with some outreach where clinically indicated.
• To lead on the ongoing development and delivery of a highly specialist clinical psychology service to the paediatric and young person’s SCI rehabilitation service and supervise junior colleagues as needed.
• To deliver highly specialist psychological assessment and treatment to adult inpatients at the NSIC, on an individual and group basis.
• To provide advice and consultation regarding inpatients psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues.
• To provide consultation to the NSIC outreach service regarding admission of inpatients with complex psychological / psychiatric needs.
• To contribute to the strategic planning of clinical psychology services within the NSIC, including leading upon the ongoing development and delivery of the paediatric psychology service within the NSIC, with the aim of maintaining high levels of psychosocial care for patients.
• To represent Clinical Psychology in aspects of the NWSIC’s wider organisational development and as part of MWL Psychology.
• To contribute to the planning, development and delivery of the Department’s teaching and training commitments.

Working for our organisation: Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 9000 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites. We strongly believe that the communities we serve should all have access to Five Star Patient Care.

Our Services:

• Acute Care: Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.
• Primary Care: Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.
• Community Services: Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire.
• Specialist Regional Services: We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

Achievements:

• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018.
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal).
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities: Please see the attached job description and person specification for full details. The applicant should be an established Clinical Psychologist with experience of working with clients with long term physical health conditions, ideally in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Applicants should have the ability to work closely with medical and surgical colleagues and other disciplines, and have experience of multi-disciplinary team work and consultation to non-psychology staff.

Person specification:

Qualifications:

• Post-graduate doctoral level training (or equivalent) in clinical psychology, including specific models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS.
• Professional registration as Practitioner Psychologist with HCPC.
• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.

Knowledge:

• Doctoral level knowledge of clinical psychology including highly developed specialist knowledge of clinical psychology in physical health, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, particularly the literature pertaining to two or more distinct psychological therapies for adults referred to Clinical Health Psychology.
• Skills in the use of highly complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• A high level of ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, highly technical, and clinically sensitive information to adults, 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 design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in Spinal trauma.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies and assessment methodologies.

Experience:

• Assessed experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist at a specialist level.
• Experience of working with adults with long term physical health problems in a hospital setting.
• Experience of working with adults with complex psychological presentations.
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients’ psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified autonomous practitioner and also within the context of a multidisciplinary treatment plan.
• Experience of delivering teaching, training and/or offering professional and clinical supervision to other professionals working with adults who have psychological difficulties.
• Experience of representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care.
• Experience of assessing and treating adults across the full range of care settings, particularly inpatient and outpatient.
• Experience of working in pain management and complex pain.
• Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of working with clinical risk.

Other:

• Ability to sit in constrained positions when working with clients.
• Ability to sustain intense levels of concentration, responding and participating as required.
• Ability to self-reflect and use clinical supervision appropriately.

Our Values:

• We are Kind.
• We are Open.
• We are Inclusive.

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.