Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust; Ashington; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 80,000; Part time

Job description

Job summary

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the passionate and innovative Obstetrics and Gynaecology Health Psychology team at Northumbria.

We are a team of Clinical and Counselling Psychologists providing clinical care to Obstetrics and Gynaecology patients. We are committed to providing high quality, responsive patient care in everything that we do. We offer compassionate support and development opportunities for staff within the Trust. We are a strong, supportive team and are also committed to compassionate support and development opportunities for our own staff team.

We are looking to recruit a band 8a Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist to join our team for 30 hours a week.

We sit within a wider Health Psychology Department, providing access to excellent CPD and specialist supervision opportunities.

We pride ourselves on innovative practice and working towards our vision of a gold standard service.

Please note we reserve the right to close this vacancy prior to the closing date once the required number of suitable applications have been received.

Main duties of the job

The aims of the Health Psychology Services in Northumbria are to:

1. Promote the health, wellbeing and functioning of the population accessing the Trust, by working with individual patients, families, and groups of patients.
2. Embed psychologically informed care by supporting healthcare teams and contributing to the systems work of the Trust and our stakeholder partners.

As well as providing assessment, formulation and psychological therapy for individual patients, Psychologists working into healthcare teams can help with:

1. Understanding the diverse range of influences on health and wellbeing (H&WB).
2. Using this understanding to extend the established approach of medical diagnosis, to include consideration of contextual factors that impact on an individual's H&WB.
3. In doing so, help shape an integrated approach to the provision of care, by supporting person-centred, psychosocial approaches.
4. Further develop the workforce and technological capabilities that are needed to deliver such holistic care, in a way that is more accessible to patients.

In line with national guidance across healthcare specialisms, by working together with our teams in this way, the expected outcome will be:

Patients at the heart of healthcare provision that considers mental and physical health in an integrated way.

About us

We manage three major locality hospitals at North Tyneside, Wansbeck and Hexham, plus a number of smaller community hospitals and clinics from Tynemouth to Berwick on Tweed, in addition to our state-of-the-art Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, the first of its kind in England. We also care for people in their homes and provide services from facilities in local communities such as health centres.

We give people greater choice and control over their care to help them to live independently at home and avoid hospital admission where appropriate. High quality patient care is at the heart of everything we do and we strive to ensure every single patient and service user has an exceptional experience with us. We have one of the most extensive patient experience programmes of any trust in England.

Job responsibilities

1. To provide high quality, effective applied psychology services in Obstetrics and Gynaecology Health Psychology.
2. To provide effective psychological assessment and interventions to the patients of the service.
3. To work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for clinical governance of own work according to trust policies.
4. To undertake R&D activities for audit, policy and service development in conjunction with service leads.
5. To supervise and support the clinical activities of assistants and trainees in the Health Psychology Service.

Please see the attached full job description and person specification for more detail as to the responsibilities and requirements of the role.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Post Graduate Doctorate (or equivalent) training in clinical/counselling psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS.
• Registered with the HCPC and eligible for chartered status with the British Psychological Society.
• Advanced theoretical and practical knowledge, through further postqualification training/continuing professional development relevant to this post, such as completion of approved courses in specific therapeutic modalities (e.g. CBT), clinical supervision, further training and experience in supervision/ consultation / training/ research and/or management skills.
• Registered with the Health Professions Council as a Practitioner Psychologist, including evidence of continuing compliance with the HPC continuing professional development requirements to practise.

Desirable

• Other specialist post qualification training, such as in specific psychological aspects of physical health/ long term conditions and/or management/supervision skills.

Experience and knowledge

Essential

• Substantial post qualification experience in highly complex psychological assessment, formulation and treatment/therapy, through supervised post-qualification clinical practice in a specialism relevant to the advertised post.
• Experience of working within the NHS with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems.

Other

Essential

• It is an essential requirement of the role that the post holder has a valid driving licence.