Clinical Psychologist in Bolton

We have an exciting opportunity for a qualified clinical psychologist with appropriate experience to join the existing clinical health psychology team at Royal Bolton Hospital. The clinical health psychology service is a small and supportive team working into a number of different specialities within the Trust, with well-established links to North West clinical psychology training courses.

As a Specialist psychologist, you will provide specialist psychological assessment and intervention, advice and consultation to non-psychological colleagues, across heart failure/cardiac care, young person's diabetes care and general medicine. You will provide specialised assessments and interventions in these multi-disciplinary settings, including wards and medical out-patient clinics. You will provide teaching, training and supervision of members of the multidisciplinary team in order to improve psychological input. In addition to working within the services, you will provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy to patients within specialisms. The post is full time and permanent. Flexible working is supported wherever possible, including the opportunity for some remote working.

Main duties of the job

• To work as a member of the clinical health psychology team and the heart failure/cardiac care, young person's diabetes care and general medicine MDT.
• To provide assessment and intervention to patients with cardiac conditions, young person diabetes and general health problems.
• To provide advice and consultation to MDT colleagues and medical teams.
• To promote psychological thinking with non-psychology colleagues.
• To participate in teaching, training, audit, and service development.
• To provide clinical supervision to psychology and non-psychology colleagues (where appropriate).

Job responsibilities

• To provide specialist psychological assessments of Cardiac patients in the agreed locality based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of highly complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, multidisciplinary case conferences, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with patients, family members and others involved in the patient's care.
• When appropriate to provide neuropsychological assessments which will require the skilled manipulation of testing materials in order to provide measures of patient’s cognitive functioning and inform decisions regarding their future treatment.
• To undertake assessments and therapeutic work that is emotionally demanding, including difficulties such as anxiety, depression, trauma, quality of life, disfigurement, disease progression and concerns about end of life.
• To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a patient’s mental and physical health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the patient’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
• To contribute specialist knowledge of psychological approaches to the management of physical health conditions within the HF team and Diabetes Service.
• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers and families, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
• To contribute to the HF rehabilitation education programme.
• 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 patients whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.
• To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to patient’s formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all patients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the patient group.
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual patients and to provide advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• To communicate, both verbally and in writing, in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of patients and to monitor progress during the course of both uni and multidisciplinary care.
• To make decisions about formulation, treatment and management regarding patients and the service in general where there may be disagreement amongst stakeholders.
• To contribute to the work of the multi-disciplinary, multi-agency teams and participate in appropriate meetings, e.g. team meetings and case discussions, when possible.
• To provide assessment and therapy to patients on the general health waiting list.

Person Specification

• Post-graduate Doctorate in clinical or counselling psychology as accredited by the BPS.
• HCPC registration as a Practitioner Psychologist.
• Completion of specialist post-qualification courses in psychological theories and clinical approaches to physical health.
• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across a range of NHS care settings.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups across the life span, with a wide variety of presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity.
• Experience in the application of clinical psychology approaches in different clinical and medical settings (inpatient & outpatient).
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Skills in providing consultation, supervision and training to other professional and non-professional groups on an individual patient and a service-level basis.
• Driving licence & ability to meet any travel requirements of the post.

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.