Research And Development jobs in United Kingdom

Job Summary

This is a leadership role where you will work in collaboration with the Lead Consultant Psychologist to ensure that the psychological skills service continues to be trauma informed in its approach and communication and provides effective and high-quality interventions. You will also provide clinical leadership, supervision, advice, guidance, and support across the psychological skills service (PSS) (though you will be based in the Cambridge team).

You will have a small clinical caseload of service users who meet criteria for complex PTSD. You will be providing individual therapy that focuses on processing traumatic memories and re-scripting events. Our main therapies for this pathway include Trauma-focused CBT (TF-CBT), Compassion-focused therapy, and/or Eye Movement and Desensitization Reprocessing therapy (EMDR).

Main Duties of the Job

You will be leading on the strategy and providing advice and guidance on the following areas (these each have their own leads that you will supervise):

1. Supervision
2. Training and development
3. Reflective practice
4. Trauma-informed communication and practice
5. Service improvement and evaluation
6. Inclusion (adapting interventions to meet the needs of all service users)

You will lead a regular quality meeting involving other members of the team and provide advice, supervision, and guidance to the wider team to ensure the quality of psychological therapy provided.

You will contribute to the initial expert assessment of clients newly referred to the team and work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the team's policies and procedures. You will provide one-to-one therapy for people with complex PTSD.

Working Environment

You will mostly be based in the Cambridge office but at times we would ask you to go to one of our other bases if other senior clinicians are not available or when there is a whole team meeting. You will work with clients at the team base or virtually. At times there will be lone working in these environments, where there is an expectation to follow the relevant safety protocols. We are keen to support working from home and flexible working.

About Us

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is a health and social care organisation dedicated to providing high-quality care with compassion to improve the health and wellbeing of the people we care for, as well as supporting and empowering them to lead a fulfilling life.

Our clinical teams deliver many NHS services, not only via inpatient and primary care settings, but also within the community. These services include children's, adult and older people's mental health, forensic and specialist mental health, learning disabilities, primary care and liaison psychiatry, substance misuse, social care, research, and development.

To achieve our goal, we look to recruit high-calibre candidates who share our vision and values. As an equal opportunities employer, we encourage applications from all sectors of the community, particularly from under-represented groups including people with long-term conditions and members of our ethnic minority and LGBTQ+ communities.

Please be advised we reserve the right to close adverts earlier than the closing date should we receive sufficient applications.

Regrettably, we cannot offer sponsorship for all our job roles. If you apply for a role that we cannot offer sponsorship for, unfortunately, your application form will be rejected from the process.

For further information on CPFT, please visit our website at www.cpft.nhs.uk.

Date Posted: 07 April 2025

Pay Scheme: Agenda for Change

Band: Band 8b

Salary: £62,215 to £72,293 a year per annum, pro rata

Contract: Permanent

Working Pattern: Full-time

Reference Number: 310-MASMH-7074035

Job Locations: Chesterton Medical Centre, Union Lane, Cambridge, CB4 1PX

Job Responsibilities

To provide clinical leadership and line management related responsibilities, including strategic thinking and monitoring of service delivery, to the psychology staff in the Psychological Skills Service (in collaboration with the consultant clinical psychologist).

To provide psychological assessments of clients referred to PSS based upon the appropriate use, 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 semi-structured interviews with clients, family members, and others involved in the clients' care.

To develop psychological formulations of presenting problems or situations that integrate information from assessments within a coherent framework that draws upon psychological theory and evidence, and which incorporates interpersonal, societal, cultural, and biological factors.

To use psychological formulations to develop and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client's mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients' problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, and to use these plans to inform and lead the work of non-psychology members of the team.

To be responsible for implementing and delivering psychological interventions for individuals, for service users with complex PTSD or other manifestations of complex trauma, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses. This includes responsibility for the delivery of psychological interventions by all team members.

To evaluate and make decisions about 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, carers, or group.

Person Specification

Education / Qualifications

Essential

• Doctoral level training in clinical/counselling or forensic psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
• Registered as Practitioner Psychologist with HCPC.
• Further training in supervision of clinical psychologists.
• Additional training in a trauma processing therapy recommended by NICE for CPTSD.

Desirable

• Qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
• Undertaken post-qualification further training in: -CBT -Acceptance and Commitment therapy or -Compassion focused therapy, or -Working with Asperger's/Autistic spectrum disorder -Schema therapy -EMDR.
• Undertaken training in the supervision of trainee clinical psychologists.

Experience

Essential

• Substantial experience of specialist psychological assessment, formulation, and treatment of service users across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, and inpatient settings.
• Experience of developing and implementing psychological interventions to groups of patients.
• Experience of working with service users with complex needs.
• Experience of teaching, training, and/or professional and clinical supervision.

Desirable

• Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of delivering group programmes based on: -Acceptance and commitment therapy -Compassion focused therapy -Complex trauma -Skills relating to ASD.
• Experience of supervising assistant psychologists.

Skills & Abilities

Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Demonstrates an understanding for the need to use evidence-based psychological therapies and how it relates to this post.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Skills in individual and group work and in programme planning.

Desirable

• Experience of leading and carrying out research projects and interpreting data using statistical analyses.
• Proven ability in carrying out clinical audits.

Knowledge & Understanding

Essential

• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the service user group and the setting, and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to the client group.
• Knowledge of current policies relating to bridging the gap between primary and secondary care.

Desirable

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies to patients specifically ACT, compassion focused therapies, CBT, EMDR and schema therapy.
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of a psychologically based group intervention.

Other

Essential

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, enabling formation of networks with professionals within the Trust and from other agencies to promote effective team working with clients.
• Able to contain and work with high levels of distress from clients.
• Able to contain and work with organisational stress.
• The ability and skills to act as an advocate for a new service, to engage and foster good professional relationships with all health professionals in promoting the good integration of this service with the wider health care system.

Desirable

• Ability to promote psychological models with clients, carers, and staff in an understandable and person-centred way, clearly outlining goals and potential outcomes.

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications.

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website.

Employer Details

Employer Name: Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

Address: Chesterton Medical Centre, Union Lane, Cambridge, CB4 1PX

Employer's Website: https://www.cpft.nhs.uk/