Practitioner Psychologist in UHS Adult Psychology

Practitioner Psychologist in UHS Adult Psychology

This post works into Congenital Cardiac (0.5wte) and Rheumatology Services (0.4wte) in University Hospital Southampton NHS Trust (UHS), which is a provider of regional and tertiary acute physical care. If people are interested in full-time working or for a part of the post, please contact the team to discuss.

You will work with the Lead Clinical Psychologist for UHS Adult Psychology and will be supported by a large and friendly team of psychologists who work in clinical health, staff, and liaison psychology in UHS.

The Congenital Cardiac post is established and valued. Currently, there are bids to increase provision into cardiac services. Rheumatology is a newer service, and we are working to look at provision for groups of patients whose needs are better met within an acute medical setting.

Balancing wellbeing with work demands and developing your professional skills are highly valued within the UHS Adult Psychology team. It offers many opportunities to develop your interest in therapeutic approaches through informal networking, facilitated reflective practice, education days, and specialist supervision or discussion groups. Currently, we have active interests in Systemic, Acceptance and Commitment, Cognitive Analytic Therapy, and EMDR therapeutic approaches. Funded training opportunities are available to all team Psychologists; recently these have included EMDR, ACT, and CAT.

The team can accommodate flexible working with most posts having an element of remote working.

Main duties of the job

You will work with multi-professional teams to provide a psychology service to the patients. This will include assessment, therapy, and consultation to patients and families.

As a part of service development, you will work towards embedding psychological thinking within systems and evaluate your work. Being embedded in the medical teams allows for a breadth of work that includes reflective practice, supervision to other professionals, teaching training, and consultation. You will be supported in your role by the UHS adult psychology administration team and senior colleagues.

UHS Adult Psychology is active in local and national specialist psychology groups, and as a part of your role, you will connect with these, which offer support for service development and generous sharing of resources and ideas. Also, with our team, there is a research strategy and research cafes to discuss ideas for research in your area. We have close links with Southampton University Clinical and Health Psychology courses and the research teams both in UHS and Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust.

We have generic job descriptions to assist career development and gaining experience. We would encourage people to contact the team to find out more about the posts and the clinical area. We would be very happy to answer any of your questions.

If you would like to find out more information about this post, please contact Dr. Alison Pearce (Lead Consultant Clinical Psychologist for UHS Adults) by email at adultpsychology@uhs.nhs.uk.

About us

Southern Health is one of the largest NHS Foundation Trusts in the UK, specialising in mental health and learning disabilities, as well as offering physical health community-based services.

With a workforce of more than 7000 and a footprint that spans more than 200 sites across Hampshire, we're wholeheartedly committed to providing the best possible healthcare, reaching a range of diverse communities, whilst placing patients and staff at the forefront of all our endeavours.

We are currently working closely with other NHS Trusts to integrate all our collective community, mental health, and learning disability services. Our new organisation, to be known as Hampshire and Isle of Wight NHS Foundation Trust, is set to launch in July 2024.

The transformation will happen in staggered stages; Hampshire CAMHS, part of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, joined Southern Health in February 2024, with Isle of Wight NHS Trust mental health and community services transitioning in early May 2024. The final combination of Southern Health and Solent Trusts is anticipated to occur in July 2024, when the new organisation will be formed.

Our new Trust will continue to cater to the unique needs of different communities, making healthcare across the county more accessible, as well as offering staff more opportunities for career development, training, and partnership working.

Join us as we embark on this exciting journey to shape the future of healthcare in Hampshire.

Job responsibilities

Further information about the Trust and this role can be found on the Job Description and Person Specification document attached.

We are happy to talk Flexible Working - all requests for flexible working options can be discussed as part of the interview process.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in applied psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies, and lifespan developmental psychology.
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists or equivalent experience.
• Registered with the Health and Care Professions Council as a Practitioner Psychologist.
• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training, and/or other fields of applied psychology.
• Post-doctoral training in a specialised area of psychological therapy.

Experience

• In-depth experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of people across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care, and inpatient settings.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of patient groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, inpatient, and residential care settings while maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse, and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for patients' psychological care and treatment, within the context of a multi-professional care plan.
• Experience of teaching, training, and/or supervision.
• Experience of service development and working with teams.
• Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary team.
• Experience of working within a Physical Health Setting and in particular the area that the job is focused on.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of working with trauma using evidence-based approaches.
• Experience of working within the NHS as an Applied Psychologist.
• Experience of neuropsychological and psychometric Assessment.

Additional Criteria

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention, and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to patients, their families, carers, and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• For posts working in medical services, knowledge of the theory and practice of working with the psychological implications of physical health problems. For all services, knowledge of a trauma-informed approach to care.
• Skills in psychological therapies used to work with physical health and trauma such as CBT, ACT, EMDR, mindfulness approaches, and Systemic therapies.
• High-level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Skills in providing psychological consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design, and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• Demonstrate an understanding of, and a commitment to the principles of recovery, choice, and personalisation.
• Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional, and academic settings.
• IT skills including email, word processing, and basic databases.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS/ACP.
• Ability to organise own workload effectively, prioritising a complex range of tasks and responsibilities to meet agreed deadlines.
• Highly motivated to provide a high-quality service and to work with other team members to constantly strive for improving service user experience.
• Enthusiasm for working within a mental health team as an integrated team member.
• An ability to travel between sites as required.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Skills and competencies in neuropsychological assessment.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

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 (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.