Band 8b - Co-Lead, Bristol Inpatient Psychology - Bristol

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust; Bristol; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 80,000; Part time

Job description

Job overview

8b Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist, Co-Lead for Bristol Inpatient Psychology

15 hours per week

This exciting role will share leadership of the Bristol Inpatient Psychology service, holding a portfolio of management, clinical supervision, service development, training delivery, and highly specialist clinical work. The role will support Inpatient Transformation work, increasing access to psychological therapies on acute mental health wards in Bristol and enhancing the therapeutic nature of admissions.

The successful Psychologist will require extensive experience working on mental health wards, specialist understanding of psychological approaches for acute mental health needs, and must be experienced in line management and clinical supervision of psychology staff at multiple levels, including assistant, trainee and qualified Psychologists.

Main duties of the job

• Line management and clinical supervision of Psychology staff working on mental health wards in Bristol, primarily at Callington Road Hospital.
• Collaboration with co-lead of Bristol Inpatient Psychology Service and Divisional lead for Inpatient Psychological Therapies in BNSSG to develop and evaluate the service, ensuring equity of access and effectiveness of psychological provision.
• Collaboration with managers of other inpatient therapies to oversee the safe and effective running of the Larch Therapies Unit.
• Collaborative oversight of the inpatient psychological training programme and Staff Support Debrief service in Bristol Inpatients.
• Delivery of highly specialist psychological assessment and interventions for people in hospital experiencing mental health crisis.

Working for our organisation

We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust) a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care. We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset.

Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

CLINICAL

• To offer an entirely autonomous highly specialist clinical psychology assessment and treatment service through the psychology service.
• To support the full implementation of the care programme approach in the multidisciplinary team or equivalent where appropriate.
• To provide supervision and consultancy to service/LDU staff with regard to problem assessment and formulation, and therapy interventions.
• To participate in clinical supervision and caseload supervision arrangements provided by the psychology service.
• To provide an advanced and specialist treatment role in the service/LDU as agreed with the service manager.
• To carry out specialist assessments as requested e.g. by the special care panel of service users with complex mental difficulties placed out of area.
• To undertake RCA's/investigations as appropriate to the service.

PROFESSIONAL

• To be accountable for own professional actions and to be aware of the BPS (1996) Code of Conduct and the DCP (1995) Professional Practice guidelines.
• To participate in Psychology/Psychological Therapy business and professional meetings.
• To maintain and further develop high standards of Psychology practice, through co-operative work with other Psychologists and peer supervision.
• To be aware of, interpret and be guided by overall health service policies with regard to area of working. To interpret and be guided by organisational policies in the course of work.

Training staff development and management

• To supervise Clinical/Counselling Psychology trainees and qualified psychologists/ psychological therapists.
• To offer training in Psychological approaches to healthcare to other staff in the multidisciplinary team and to staff from other parts of the service.
• To provide expert lectures, seminars and workshops as necessary locally and across the LDU/Division and Trust.
• To lecture on the Doctoral Clinical / Counselling Psychology training courses.
• To agree a plan for personal development with the psychology line manager and participate in annual review.
• Provide inclusive, compassionate and effective leadership for your team by setting clear vision and direction.
• Develop a culture and environment in which members of staff are encouraged and supported to deliver high-quality services and are supported to innovate and improve services where appropriate.
• Encourage your team to feel able to raise concerns openly and safely.
• Promote equality of opportunity in service delivery and employment, ensuring that no person receives less favourable treatment than another on the grounds of gender, marital status, race, religion, creed, colour nationality ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation or disability.
• Support prompt recruitment by identifying vacancies to the AWP Recruitment Team as soon as they arise, and participate in the selection and effective induction and onboarding of new joiners to the team.
• Ensure that all team members have a very positive introduction to the team and a well-supported first year.
• Take responsibility for encouraging people to stay with AWP, ensuring that you are aware whenever a member of your team is considering leaving, seeking to understand their reasons and encouraging them to stay.
• Ensure that key messages are cascaded in your team and that your team are encouraged to put forward suggestions.
• Show appreciation to your team when they do good work and support them when they are struggling.
• Consider the individual needs of team members for a healthy work-life balance and think about how their needs can be supported by providing flexible ways of working.
• Support all team members to keep their mandatory and statutory training up-to-date and identify the learning and development needs of all team members of the team ensuring that everyone has an up-to-date personal development plan (PDP).
• Ensure that every team member as at least an hour of supervision (one-to-one meeting) each month, this may include both managerial and clinical supervision.
• Ensure all team members receive a constructive assessment of their performance each year and set SMART objectives for the coming year.
• Seek support from the HR Team to tackle any worries regarding matters of discipline, including both conduct and capability concerns, supporting a 'just and restorative culture'. Take prompt action regarding serious concerns and ensure clear plans are in place for problems which are less serious in nature but prove difficult to resolve.
• Act as a positive role model at all times, encouraging people to feel equal members of the team whilst working within clear frameworks and policies.
• Promote effective use of bank and agency nursing staff, providing a safe and effective service, complying with regulatory standards.

Person specification

Management and leadership

Essential criteria

• Experience of providing Clinical and Management supervision to psychology staff
• Significant experience of training development and delivery
• Significant experience of service development

Clinical

Essential criteria

• Experience of work on multiple inpatient wards

Education and qualification

Essential criteria

• HCPC registered Clinical/Counselling Psychologist
• Doctorate in Clinical Psychology

We are proud to be fostering a diverse workforce that reflects our communities. A key commitment to this is improving staff representation from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, those from the LGBTQ+ communities, people with 'lived-experience' of mental health conditions and people living with disabilities,- we are a 'Disability Confident Employer' offering a guaranteed interview to Disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria. This includes people with a variety of disabilities and neurodivergent conditions (for example autism, ADHD, sensory, physical and learning disabilities).

We encourage applications from people who wish to work on a flexible basis, recognising that flexibility may mean a range of different working patterns and hours, we do our utmost to work with our staff to meet their needs and the needs of our service users.

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Please apply to join us, we would love to hear from you. Any personal details you supply to us are kept safe in line with the General Data Protection Regulations.

Adverts normally close for application a few minutes before midnight on the closing date and we will let you know if we are offering you an interview by email via our recruitment system 'TRAC'. We contact all applicants within 4 weeks after the closing date, so please check your emails regularly once you have submitted your application; you are welcome to contact us, via the TRAC system, if you have any queries about your application.

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Applicant requirements

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.

Application numbers

This vacancy may close early if it receives a high number of applications. Please complete and submit your application in good time to avoid disappointment.