Eating Disorder Counselling/Clinical Psychologist or CBT Therapist

Employer East London NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site Community Eating Disorder Service Town London Salary £54,320 – £60,981 Per annum pro rata inc HCA Salary period Yearly Closing 27/07/2025 23:59

Eating Disorder Counselling/Clinical Psychologist or CBT Therapist

Band 7

ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental and health care, innovation and improvement. So it is a very exciting time for you to come and work for us. Our mission is to make a positive difference to people\’s lives by improving quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Job overview

Do you have a passion for supporting residents suffering with eating disorders? Do you want to be a part of a growing psychology lead team? Do you have an interest in Compassion Focused Therapy? Then this post is for you!

We are looking for a Psychologist/CBT therapist to join ourdeveloping psychology lead MDT to support residents and families who are impacted by patterns of disordered eating.

You will provide specialist psychological services (NICE informed) to adults across all sectors of care, providing psychological assessment, group work and psychoeducation workshops, and individual therapeutic interventions through our FREED and non-FREED pathways. You will help lead on growing the provision in both traditional (groups, access) and novel ways (digital) along with committed colleagues and experts-by-experience.

As there will be opportunities for further training and CPD, the role will be highly suitable for an experienced clinician as well as for a newly qualified clinician who has an interest in eating disorders.

We sincerely welcome applications from people who have previous experience of using Mental Health services, and/or individuals who are/have been a carer for someone, and from people who have strong local connections to the 3 boroughs in which we work.

Main duties of the job

Provide specialist psychological assessments, based on the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources (including psychological tests, measures/rating scales, direct and indirect observation and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and involved others).

Formulate and implement plans for the formal specialist psychological treatment and/or management of mental health problems across a range of care settings, using theoretical knowledge and evidence base to analyse, interpret and compare complex information in order to design specialist programmes of treatment for individuals, groups and families tailored to individual need.

Provide expertise and psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other multidisciplinary professionals contributing directly to service users’ formulation, diagnosis and service planning. Ensure that multidisciplinary colleagues have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding the care of service users.

Undertake risk assessment and management and to provide specialist advice on psychological and eating disorder related aspects of risk assessment and management.

Share team responsibility to triage and screen appropriateness of referrals to the eating disorder team.

Provide and receive highly complex, sensitive, distressing and emotional information in relation to health issues where there are often barriers to acceptance.

Working for our organisation

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people\’s lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To complete specialist eating disorder assessments (both psychological and some physical health measures) and provide formulations based on the information collected.
• To deliver evidence based and NICE concordant interventions for eating disorders to residents and their families. These interventions may be delivered in clinic, community and home settings, as well as remote/virtual sessions; to individuals or groups
• To work within a psychology lead MDT assessing and managing mental health and associated physical health risk in eating disorders.
• To contribute to increasing awareness across our communities (residents, GPs, VSCEs, local groups) of the presentation and prevalence of eating disorders.
• To develop and deliver early intervention support, including consultation, psycho-education, self-help materials, and links to service user groups.
• To take an active role in service development and Quality Improvement (QI) work undertaken by the team
• To directly contribute to the positive working environment within the MDT
• To manage a rolling caseload of residents within the ED pathway.
• To be part of a rota of duty clinicians managing referrals and providing a rapid response to urgent clinical situations.

To pursue CPD activities and attend training as required in order to promote own knowledge and specialist skills to work with residents who are suffering with eating disorders and their families.

Person specification

Educational

• Qualifications: Doctorate in Counselling Psychology and able to demonstrate eligibility for BPS CPsychol (Chartered Psychologist) Or Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) or BPS statement of Equivalence and able to demonstrate eligibility for BPS CPsychol (Chartered Psychologist) Or Accredited training as a CBT Therapist, and Core mental health profession, or a demonstrable working knowledge of NHS values, clinical structures in secondary mental health care, referral pathways, how services are funded and the roles of NHS professionals
• Registration: Full registration with one of: 1. HCPC (Psychologists and Arts Therapists) 2. BABCP 3. UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)
• Evidence of continuing professional development relevant to the specialty as required by professional accrediting/registration body (e.g. BPS/ HCPC/ BABCP).
• Experience of working with adults, families, parents/carers
• Evidence of clinical skills relevant to working with adults with mental health difficulties (especially eating disorders)
• To be able to deliver highly specialist therapy using two or more relevant models, from amongst the following, in order of preference: 1. CBT-E 2. MANTRA, SSCM or FPT 3. Other models used on complex eating disorders, eg MANTRA, CFT, DBT, CAT
• A knowledge of Eating Disorder issues including assessment and interventions
• Ability to personally manage a sensitive, traumatic and potentially emotionally distressing caseload
• Knowledge and skills in co-production of service development and delivery.
• Experience in contributing to service development, redesign and improvements in secondary mental health services.
• Experience of working in a culturally diverse, inner city service
• Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary way

Experience

• Experience of working with people with mental health problems. This could include, for example, conducting psychological assessments and gathering outcome measures as part of a research project, working in a formal or informal capacity as a befriender or carer, or working on a voluntary basis with a charitable organisation that supports people with mental health problems.
• Able to take a lead on service developments and projects with delegated responsibility.
• Evidence of continuing professional development relevant to the specialty as required by professional accrediting/registration body (e.g. BPS/ HCPC/ BABCP).
• Knowledge and skills in co-production of service development and delivery.
• Experience in contributing to service development, redesign and improvements in secondary mental health services.
• Experience of working in a culturally diverse, inner city service

Making Things Better

Quality Improvement is a key part of our work to improve our services and refine how we do things. We have a global reputation for our quality improvement work and we don’t stand still! So we offer a fantastic opportunity for our staff to learn, lead and contribute towards improving our services.

We launched our Five Year Strategy in April 2018, which identified four main strategic outcomes to improve: population health outcomes, experience of care, staff experience and improve value. This complements the NHS Long Term Strategy and sets out our direction of travel.

Our Community

We provide a wide range of community health and mental health inpatient services to children, young people, adults of working age, and older adults in The City of London, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Bedfordshire and Luton. We also provide psychological therapy services to the London Borough of Richmond, and provide Forensic services to the whole of North East London. We provide services in urban and rural settings, sometimes in our inpatient units, but mostly in the community close to where people live. Integrated care is key in making the best use of resources and providing effective care.

Aiming High

We were rated ‘Outstanding’ by the CQC in 2016, were proud to be rated ‘Outstanding’ again in 2018 and continue to be rate \’Outstanding\’ in 2021.. We were named in the HSJ’s Top 10 best places to work in healthcare and were voted Provider Trust of the Year in 2018.

Staff and Service Users United

We strive to ensure that staff feel valued by the Trust and as they are truly pivotal in delivering better outcomes for our patients and service users. Our aspiration is to help to make ELFT the best place to work. This Trust is clinician-led and provides the highest possible level of clinical expertise throughout its services. We pride ourselves on our service user involvement. A service user will be on your assessment centre and interview panel if you are invited to meet us.

We especially welcome people with lived experience of health difficulties, with insight and understanding of different backgrounds, cultures and lifestyles in our population as we believe that this will equip staff to deliver a high standard of care to our service users and patients.

Diversity

ELFT Is committed to being a diverse organisation and our workforce is reflective of the population and communities we serve. We believe that having colleagues with a range of backgrounds and life experiences enriches and adds value to the outcomes we have set out to achieve. Having partnered and endorsed by organisations who are representative and experts in various areas of equality and diversity, we can ensure we are meeting the pre-set standards all the way from recruitment stage throughout the career journey of our employees by being accessible, having fair inclusive practices and a host of staff networks to support, nurture and celebrate our valued staff in the workplace.

Other reasons to apply

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s job share, part time or another flexible pattern.

As part of the relocation scheme we presently have, the Trust could support you with offering up to £10,000 for removal and associated expenses. This is subject to change and terms and conditions apply.

What Next?

If you like the sound of ELFT, don’t waste a moment. We sometimes close adverts early if there is a high response, so apply now!

As part of our recruitment process we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS. We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same..

If you do not hear from us within four weeks of the closing date, please consider that you have not been shortlisted on this occasion. You must provide professional email addresses for all referees as we will contact them as soon as an offer has been made. Please note we do not request references prior to interviews. All applications made through NHS Jobs account will be processed by TRAC System. Please note that some emails may go to your spam/junk mailbox so make sure you check this regularly.

Find us online at www.elft.nhs.uk | Find us on Facebook | Follow us on @NHS_ELFT

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

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.

Name Dr. Brian Sreenan Job title Consultant Psychological Lead for Eating Disorders Email address Brian.Sreenan@nhs.net Telephone number 02082238075

#J-18808-Ljbffr