Principal Clinical Psychologist - ISF Clinical Lead

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnic minorities, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen within the Halton & Warrington Community Learning Disability Teams (CLDT) for a Principal Clinical Psychologist to clinically lead the Intensive Support Function of our Teams. The post holder will provide strategic and clinical leadership for the delivery of the ISF function across the Halton & Warrington CLDT.

They will be required to contribute specialist psychological knowledge and leadership to support the teams in the provision of specialist assessment, therapy, risk assessment and risk management plans to those individuals who have a learning disability with complex presentations, including people with behaviours of concern, autism, and forensic difficulties, and to their support systems.

The job requires the post holder to lead on and utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the teams/service. The service model is one of supporting people who present with behaviours of concern, working closely with specialist practitioners and other health professionals to support this complex group of individuals to remain in their community setting and, where an appropriate admission has occurred, to be discharged promptly and safely in line with national Transforming Care strategy.

They will have clinical oversight of team caseload, particularly those who are on the dynamic support database and presenting in crisis with a risk to admission into hospital and/or placement breakdown.

Main duties of the job

Do you have a passion for delivering outstanding care that brings the 6 C's to life? If so, we want to hear from you.

This is an exciting opportunity to work in an evolving team and at the same time be part of well-established community learning disability teams working alongside Clinical Psychologists, Occupational Therapists, Speech & Language Therapists, Physiotherapists, Consultant Psychiatrist, Nurses and Assistants of each discipline. The ISF model includes Principal Clinical Psychologist, Advanced Practitioner, Forensic Practitioner, Assistant Psychologist and Community LD Support Worker.

We are looking for a confident individual who will be able to provide strategic and clinical leadership. In return, you will receive clinical and managerial supervision, have links to peer psychology meetings and appropriate training and CPD opportunities and an annual personal development review.

Our core operational hours are between 9am - 5pm Monday to Friday. Applicants must be able to be flexible with their working patterns to meet the needs of the service.

The ability, means and willingness to travel between multiple sites in the course of performing duties is essential. The role will involve regular travel across multiple sites in the Mersey Care Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust catchment area. Therefore, the post holder must be able to meet the travel requirements of this post. Please indicate on your application how you meet this requirement.

Working for our organisation

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce costs as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To provide strategic and clinical leadership for the delivery of the Enhanced Intensive Support (EIS) function within the Community LD Teams. The post holder will be required to contribute specialist psychological knowledge and leadership to support the team in the provision of specialist assessment and therapy to those individuals who have a learning disability with complex presentation, including people with behaviours that challenge, autism and forensic presentation and to their support systems.

The post holder will offer advice and consultation on individuals' psychological care to other professionals and carers as well as holding an identified caseload of those individuals with the most complex needs. The job requires the post holder to lead on and utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service.

The service model is one of supporting people whose behaviours challenge services, working closely with specialist practitioners and other health professionals to support this complex group of individuals to remain in their community setting and, where an appropriate admission has occurred, to be discharged promptly and safely in line with national Transforming Care strategy. The post holder will have clinical oversight of the team caseload, particularly those who are on the dynamic support database and presenting in crisis with a risk to admission into hospital and/or placement breakdown.

Duties and Responsibilities

Clinical:

To be a member of the service team and to contribute to, participate in and adhere to the guidelines and policies of that service.

To be responsible for the systematic provision of the Enhanced Intensive Support (EIS) service function at a highly specialist level. To adhere to the organisation of the service particularly with regard to membership of the multidisciplinary teams.

To ensure interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations, and interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client's care. This will include the following:

• Highly specialist one-to-one clinical consultation
• Highly specialist psychological assessment including issues of risk
• Psychological interventions for individuals, families and groups, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provision hypotheses
• Decision making for and evaluating treatment options, taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group
• Exercising autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based intervention plans
• Staff consultation contributing directly to clients' formulation, diagnosis and intervention plan
• Staff consultation on the use of psychological techniques
• Staff supervision in the use of psychological techniques

To carry a specialised caseload of clients with complex, severe and enduring challenging behaviour and other psychological problems. To provide specialised psychological assessments of referred clients, based on appropriate use, interpretation and integration of a range of complex psychological data from a variety of sources, including psychometric tests which require manual dexterity.

To develop highly specialised clinical psychology interventions and management plans, based on formulations and an appropriate conceptual framework for the particular individual, and drawing upon extensive theoretical knowledge of different explanatory psychological models and specialist expertise in the implementation of evidence-based practice.

To prioritise and delegate work to ensure that skills are used to address the more severe and complex psychological presentation and crisis intervention working with people with LD on the Dynamic Support Database (DSD).

To consult with a wide range of services and negotiate appropriate professional relationships with both statutory and voluntary agencies to both ensure the referral of appropriate casework and communicate highly complex clinical information.

To exercise autonomous clinical responsibility for implementing a range of psychological interventions with adults with behaviour that challenges their care setting, their families and carers, adjusting, interpreting and reformulating psychological models as appropriate on the basis of feedback, monitoring and follow up. To make referrals to other disciplines and specialist practitioners as appropriate, following discussion with other community team members and consultation with the Consultant Clinical Psychologist.

To provide expertise, advice and support to other professionals, in order to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care to service users.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management of individuals presenting with risk of vulnerability, self-harm and/or risk of physical, sexual or emotional harm to others as part of the teams risk assessment process.

To participate directly in the teams caseload and provide support and guidance to other colleagues undertaking the role.

Please see attached job description for full details.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Up to date Professional Registration (to be maintained)
• Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and Neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
• Registration with Health Professions Council as Practising Psychologist (to be maintained).
• Training in a specialist therapeutic modality appropriate to the clinical population served and service requirements (e.g. DBT, CAT, CBT, EMDR, MBT).

Desirable criteria

• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.

Knowledge/experience

Essential criteria

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment, formulation and intervention with clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community and inpatient settings.
• Ability to communicate effectively in highly emotive situations.
• Highly developed knowledge of theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies with specific reference to difficult to treat groups such as people with severely challenging behaviour/personality disorders/ASC.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the Health Professions Council and the British Psychological Society.
• Knowledge of the Mental Capacity and Mental Health Act.
• Experience of delivering teaching, training and supervision.
• Experience in consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Doctoral level knowledge (or its equivalent) of research design and methodology, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology.
• Knowledge of current psychological evidence base and best practice in working within client group.
• Experience of autonomous clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and development of behaviour management programmes.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or professional clinical supervision.
• Experience of multi-professional leadership of teams or services within the designated specialty.
• Experience of undertaking capacity assessments in a range of contexts.
• Experience of psychological practice in managing mental health problems or offending behaviour.
• Demonstrate the ability to co-ordinate and lead a multi-agency care plan/risk management plan.
• Knowledge of research design and methodology consistent with systemic practice to at least Masters level or equivalent.
• Knowledge of legislation and strategic frameworks.

Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.

Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust's guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email recruitment@merseycare.nhs.uk to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.

We reserve the right to close any vacancy earlier than advertised in exceptional circumstances once we have received a high volume of applications.

The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £13 per year and maintain registration. Trans applicants who require a DBS check and do not want to reveal details of their previous identity can contact the DBS Sensitive Applications Team (01516761452 or email sensitive@dbs.gsi.gov.uk) with their application number once they have completed their DBS application form. The team can prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

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.

Documents to download

• Principal Clinical Psychologist - ISF Clinical Lead (PDF, 385.6KB)
• OH Risk Form (PDF, 160.4KB)
• A Great Place to Work (PDF, 2.1MB)
• Our People Promise and Charter (PDF, 5.8MB)
• Employee Benefits (PDF, 950.7KB)