At a Glance
- Tasks: Provide specialist psychological support to cancer and palliative care patients and their families.
- Company: Join the Dimbleby Cancer Care team at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, professional development, and a chance to make a real difference.
- Other info: Opportunity for career growth and collaboration with diverse healthcare professionals.
- Why this job: Be part of a compassionate team making an impact in patients' lives.
- Qualifications: Doctoral level training in clinical psychology or counselling psychology required.
The predicted salary is between 58133 - 65261 £ per year.
The post will provide a psychologically informed approach and service as part of the Psycho-oncology Support Team (POST) within Dimbleby Cancer Care, for cancer and palliative care patients and significant involved others at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals. The post will be based at Guy's hospital site (with possibility of some working on St Thomas' site), and is suitable for someone starting out in their career, or is keen to specialise in cancer and palliative care. You will provide highly specialist psychological assessment and therapy, offering advice and consultation on clients' psychological care to medical teams, and work autonomously within professional practice guidelines and the overall framework of the psychological support team's policies and procedures. You will see outpatients, and significantly connected others.
Main duties of the job include:
- Providing specialist psychological/therapeutic assessment and therapeutic intervention with people with a cancer or palliative diagnosis, their family members and others involved in the clients care.
- Collaboratively using psychological/therapy resources and knowledge to inform a timely response to adjustment and distress within a cancer and palliative care context.
- Implementing a range of psychological/therapeutic interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams.
- Evaluating and making decisions regarding options for a person/couple/family following a therapeutic assessment.
- Exercising autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, ongoing therapy and discharge of clients, liaising with other professionals when necessary.
- Providing specialist advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals regarding psychological approaches to managing a person's care.
- Contributing 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 the client group.
- Employing knowledge of safeguarding, undertaking risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and families.
- Communicating in a respectful, considered and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients and monitoring progress within a multi-disciplinary context.
Teaching, training, and supervision responsibilities include:
- Receiving regular clinical professional supervision in line with professional regulatory body.
- Gaining any additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to the post and/or the service.
- Developing skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision.
- Providing professional and clinical supervision of junior colleagues where appropriate.
- Contributing to various patient support programmes across the cancer directorate.
- Providing advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings.
Management and service development tasks include:
- Contributing to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the team's operational policies and services.
- Maintaining the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and responsible exercise of professional self-governance.
- Maintaining up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group and mental health.
Essential qualifications include:
- Doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent) OR Counselling Psychologist.
- Registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a Practitioner Psychologist OR UKCP registered Psychotherapist or equivalent.
Essential experience includes:
- Substantial experience of working at a highly specialist level with people showing a range of psychosocial needs.
- Experience of highly specialist psychological assessment and therapy intervention across a range of care contexts.
- Experience of managing a complex and busy caseload and being responsive to urgent requests for support/help from colleagues.
Essential skills include:
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment to inform therapeutic focus.
- Ability to communicate complex and/or technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues.
- Willingness to talk about and be with death and dying using psychologically informed approaches.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and will require a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Highly Specialist Practitioner Psychologist in Cancer in London employer: National health service
The London Ambulance Service NHS Trust is an exceptional employer, offering a dynamic work environment that prioritises patient safety and service improvement. With a strong commitment to employee development, including leadership training and apprenticeship programmes, staff are empowered to grow their skills while contributing to the health of London. The Trust's inclusive culture and focus on quality management ensure that employees feel valued and supported in their vital roles.
