Practitioner Psychologist in Paediatric Diabetes, Band 8a

Employer Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Employer type NHS

Site Psychological Services, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (Beacon House)

Town Gloucester

Salary £53,755 - £60,504 (pro rata if part time)

Salary period Yearly

Closing 10/04/2025 23:59

Practitioner Psychologist in Paediatric Diabetes, Band 8a

Join us at an exciting time for Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust! We have an ambitious plan for our journey to Outstanding and are looking for aspirational, committed individuals to join us, making a real difference to both staff and patients.

As a former winner of England for excellence award: Tourism destination of the year, the beautiful city of Gloucester and the scenic regency spa town of Cheltenham are fantastic places to work and live.

As a hospital Trust we are currently involved in over 100 clinical trials and studies, whilst also providing acute elective and specialist services to a population of over 620,000.

By joining Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust new colleagues can look forward to a warm welcome and a future full of opportunities and support.

Job overview

We are seeking a skilled, innovative and compassionate clinical psychologist to provide and develop specialist interventions and psychologically informed care for children and young people with diabetes, their families and the paediatric diabetes team service as a whole. The post is varied and spans outpatient clinical work, in-patient work when needed, indirect clinical work such as training, consultation and supervision, evaluation and research, to support the integration of psychologically informed care within the MDT more broadly, based at Gloucester Royal Hospital.

The Psychology department is very friendly, extremely well established in the trust and growing, and is keen on innovating and continuously developing our services and clinical practice.

Main duties of the job

The successful candidate will have a post-graduate doctorate in clinical, counselling or health psychology and will be registered with the HCPC as a psychological practitioner.

Your job is to be responsible, alongside the current Clinical Psychologist, for providing a high quality, specialist clinical psychology service for children and young people with diabetes, their families and the paediatric diabetes MDT consistent with the Trust's objective of "best care for everyone".

This will include:

• Providing specialist psychological interventions to in- and out-patients and family members as appropriate.
• Providing "indirect" clinical work of supervision, consultation and training to the paediatric diabetes MDT staff, to enable the MDT to provide psychologically informed, and developmentally appropriate care.
• Using knowledge and skills to identify and implement audit, research and service development work.
• Being involved in the continued professional development and supervision of roles such as assistant psychologists or placements as they arise.

Working for our organisation

Psychological Services is a large, friendly, well-established department that is keen on innovating and continuously developing services and clinical practice. We are formed of assistant and trainee psychologists, newly qualified, senior, principal and consultant clinical, health and counselling psychologists across many specialties.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder will be required:

Clinical

· Direct clinical intervention through the application of a range of psychological theories and models to analyse, understand and interpret complex situations and behaviours in order to formulate solutions and treatment which is tailored to individuals’ needs. This requires the capacity to engage in intense concentration for prolonged periods of time.

· Although the post holder acts autonomously and is professionally accountable for their own practice, in common with all clinical psychologists undertakes regular supervision.

· To work proactively and preventatively with the MDT to identify and intervene early in psychological concerns or distress. To also work with more complex cases appropriate for a physical health acute setting and to working jointly and consultatively with other colleagues. For example, with patients or families who have extreme difficulty in accepting their diagnosis or making necessary lifestyle changes, patients who have co-morbid mood difficulties or other psychological factors that affect adjustment, adherence and living well with diabetes.

· Effective communication of highly complex, contentious, delicate and often unwelcome information to patients, carers and staff within a highly emotive atmosphere, in a rapidly changing context. This involves working alone with patients who may be in a highly emotional or distressed state and requires a high level of skilled communication.

· Provide specialised advice, supervision and consultation on care, therapy, and psychological aspects of health to multidisciplinary teams, staff groups, young people and families.

· Responsibility for managing own time, planning of patient clinics and other clinical work. Organising workload of, and supervising trainees / students / psychology assistants where appropriate.

· Responsibility for maintaining clear and accurate patient records in the department and in hospital health care records, including letter writing and reports to other health care colleagues and other relevant agencies.

· Application of current evidence based interventions in clinical psychology.

· There will be a frequent requirement for intense concentration during individual and group sessions and exposure to distressing or emotional circumstances. This includes occasionally dealing with verbally or physically aggressive patients.

· Although the post holder acts autonomously and is professionally accountable for their own practice, in common with all applied psychologists, undertakes regular clinical supervision.

Policy and Service Development

· Provider of professional advice to health community on psychological factors relating to physical health, e.g. adjusting to diagnosis, accessing investigations/treatment, adherence to treatment and end of life issues.

· Implement policies and service developments in line with government directives.

· Identify service needs, setting up new initiatives which will enhance patient care outcomes.

Teaching/training

· Deliver specialist psychology teaching /training to doctoral and applied psychology trainees and psychology colleagues. This may include supervision.

· Teaching psychological aspects of physical health to other healthcare professionals within specialist services.

· Use appropriate information technology to support teaching and training e.g. PowerPoint.

Research and Development activity

· To undertake applied clinical research and audit programmes, using a range of quantitative and qualitative methodologies with the aim of improving health outcomes of patients their families and carers. This utilises reflective scientist-practitioner and doctoral level research skills.

· Supervision of Assistant Psychologists and Clinical Psychology Trainees in research and development.

· Offer consultation to other professionals with reference to research or audit-based activity.

· Regularly carry out evaluation of clinical intervention and making adjustments indicated by this.

· Comply with Clinical Governance requirements.

CPD

· Participate in current Trust performance / development review systems (e.g. appraisal).

· Responsibility for maintenance and development for own professional skills based.

· Remain abreast of recent developments in relevant areas of psychology through personal study and attendance at workshops / conferences.

· Actively participate in local and national special interest groups.

Physical Effort and Working Conditions

Job requires sitting in restricted physical position, providing an appropriate and supportive posture for substantial and prolonged periods of time during clinical interviews, assessment, treatment and the provision of supervision etc.

Frequent requirement for precision and multi-tasking during assessment e.g. attending to and assessing both the content of the client’s responses and their non-verbal behaviour, levels of attention, concentration etc.

Job requires frequent exposure to highly distressing and/or highly emotional circumstances.

Work effectively and professionally with colleagues who may become stressed or distressed by their own work, while maintaining emotional resilience.

Maintain a positive and compassionate attitude.

Create a friendly, professional and welcoming environment to all clients, colleagues and visitors across all aspects of the post.

Job involves occasional exposure to unpleasant working conditions (e.g. body fluids, noxious odours, verbal aggression, visual exposure to treatment processes).

Job requires application of computer keyboard and IT skills.

Frequent use of computers/VDU equipment for long periods of time.

The ability to drive to clinical sessions and events outside of GRH.

Work in areas where infection control policies must be observed.

Additional Contact

Dr Kate Crews- Clinical Psychologist in Paediatric Diabetes and Neonatal Care

kate.crews@nhs.net

Person specification

Qualifications

• Doctoral level training in counselling/clinical/health psychology including specifically, models of psychopathology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
• Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a practitioner psychological practitioner.
• Evidence of regular CPD including post doctoral training in additional specialist areas of psychological practice.

Experience

• Significant understanding of, and experience with, evidence-based psychological models and therapeutic approaches to health and illness including third wave therapies (e.g. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Compassion Focused Therapies).
• Significant experience in physical health and/or working with children and families with complex presentations (e.g. CAMHS).
• Experience of working with children as a qualified clinical psychologist.
• Experience of providing advice, consultation and supervision to other healthcare professionals regarding psychological aspects of care.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

• Able to communicate in a highly sensitive and skilled manner, sensitive information to patients, carers and with staff members and colleagues in a compassionate and effective way, for example where there are high levels of distress, psychological risk, anger, or where barriers to self-care exist.
• Ability to put psychological theory into practice in novel and complex clinical settings, synthesising data and theory from a range of evidence-based sources to create individual, group, team intervention plans.
• Highly-developed skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment including the use and evaluation of psychometric scales within physical health settings; experience in the collection, analysis, and dissemination of audit and clinical data.
• Ability to contain and work therapeutically with people in extreme psychological distress.
• Able to work exceptionally well within a team, to foster psychological safety and a climate of care, compassion and learning.
• Ability to evaluate and prioritise competing clinical demands and to use planned and ad hoc supervision as part of coping with these.
• Mobile to meet the requirements of the post.
• Proficient use of standard IT systems for clinical work, training, and research purposes including Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint.
• Experience of brief interventions.
• Knowledge of healthcare systems and the contribution of psychology to these.

Qualities

• Ability to build positive working relationships, respecting and valuing the contributions made by others and acting in an inclusive, considerate and helpful manner at all times.
• Demonstrable interest in working in physical health and with patients with chronic disease.
• Efficient and well-organised.
• Able to demonstrate a realistic awareness of the potential emotional impact of working in this field together with strategies to compassionately manage this, both within themselves and fostering colleague and team wellbeing.
• Can cope with working across sites in a busy and changing environment.
• Able to maintain a high degree of professionalism in the face of, at times, highly emotive and distressing issues.
• Ability to be flexible and tolerate systemic challenges.

The health and wellbeing of our staff and patients remains the priority of the Trust. Vaccination remains the best chance we have of conquering COVID and the Trust encourages everyone to take up this offer.

Please note, this vacancy may close as soon as sufficient applications have been received, so please apply as soon as possible if you are interested. The Recruitment Team are unable to accept any applications after the position has closed on NHS Jobs.

Committed to safeguarding our community

If applicable for the post, all successful candidates will be required to pay for their own Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. The cost will be £29 (standard checks) or £46 (enhanced checks), and will be recovered through two instalments from the candidate's salary. Please contact ghn-tr.recruitment@nhs.net for further information.

The Trust is a safeguarding employer committed to the safeguarding and promotion of welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The Trust is committed to safe recruitment practices to protect children and vulnerable adults, and any appointment will be subject to satisfactory clearance. As part of the organisation's commitment to Safer Recruitment, candidates may request copies of relevant policies and procedures by contacting the Recruitment Team at ghn-tr.recruitment@nhs.net

Committed to supporting service personnel

As part of our commitment to support Service Personnel, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, in collaboration with the Career Transition Partnership, offer a Guaranteed Interview Scheme for all qualifying Service and Ex-Service Personnel. To qualify for a guaranteed interview, candidates must meet the essential criteria for the post and be either a current member of the Armed Forces, or be within the two year period of resettlement. If this applies to you please email the job reference number and your AR number to the Recruitment Team at ghn-tr.recruitment@nhs.net

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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 Julie Highfield Job title Chief Psychological Professions Officer Email address julie.highfield1@nhs.net Telephone number 03004227523 Additional information

Dr Kate Crews- Clinical Psychologist in Paediatric Diabetes and Neonatal Care

kate.crews@nhs.net