Clinical Psychologist

We are excited to be advertising for a new role within our Older People's CMHT and Memory Assessment Service in Bedfordshire, mainly based in the South Bedfordshire locality. The post holder will provide specialist assessments and interventions for people receiving services within our Memory Assessment Services, within a service where psychology input is valued and working with an MDT. This is a varied role, with opportunities to offer a range of assessments, interventions and consultation with the team around risk assessment and care planning. The role involves supervision of CAPs, assistant psychologist and trainee clinical psychologists, as well as contributing to teaching and training and service development projects.

The post holder will be responsible for the provision of specialist psychological input to Older People’s Mental Health Services in the South Bedfordshire area.

This role includes provision of psychological and neuropsychological assessments, psychological formulations and delivery of highly specialist psychological interventions to service users in community, residential and inpatient settings. Service users seen by the post holder will include people who have experienced high levels of distress and complex mental health difficulties, and people presenting with distressed behavior associated with neurodegenerative disorders. Service users may present with a high level of risk to both themselves and sometimes to other people.

The post holder will also provide consultation to the multi-disciplinary community team and Memory Assessment Services in Bedfordshire and support in the development of care plans for service users. Supervision to Assistant and Trainee psychologists forms an important part of the post. Contribution to service development initiatives, audit and research are expected as a senior clinician in the team. With guidance from the Older People’s Psychology Lead, the postholder will liaise closely with psychologists working in other Older People’s teams in Luton and Bedfordshire to develop and maintain a high standard of professional practice across the service.

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Please refer to the attached Job Description and Person Specification for full details.

Clinical:

• Provide highly developed specialist psychological and neuropsychological assessments, based on the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources (including psychological/neuropsychological tests, measures/rating scales, direct and indirect observation and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and involved others.
• Formulate plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of mental health problems and dementia across a range of care settings, based upon a broad theoretical knowledge base to analyse, interpret and compare complex information in order to design specialist programmes of treatment for individuals, groups and families tailored to individual need.
• To be responsible for implementing a broad range of specialist psychological treatments and mental health interventions which require the formulation and modification of plans and strategies as practice and experience demands. This will require the adjustment and refinement of complex formulations which draw on different explanatory models, and the maintenance of a number of provisional hypotheses.
• To provide expertise and specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other multidisciplinary professionals contributing directly to service users’ formulation, diagnosis and service planning. Ensure that multidisciplinary colleagues have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding the care of service users.
• To undertake risk assessment and management and to provide specialist advice on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management.
• To be responsible for recording, monitoring and reporting on clinical work and communicating complex clinical information to a variety of recipients, e.g. service users, families and carers, other professionals, formal panels and statutory and voluntary organisations, orally, in writing and/or electronically.

Operational:

• To coordinate and oversee appropriate clinical supervision of the team members offering psychological interventions.
• Use information technology in line with Trust and NHS information governance requirements, and maintain up to date knowledge of systems and governance requirements.
• Collate and report on information across service area using information systems to a high standard.
• Prepare teaching materials and presentations to a professional level.
• Provide specialist consultation, training and (where agreed) clinical supervision to other multidisciplinary professionals for their provision of psychologically-based interventions for service users.
• Provide specialist placements for trainee psychologists and other psychological therapists in training, ensuring they are provided with necessarily clinical and research/evaluation skills and experience to develop competent practice, and contributing to the assessment and evaluation of those competencies.
• Develop and deliver, jointly with other clinical psychologists where necessary, teaching events for clinical psychology Doctoral training programmes.
• Ensure the development, maintenance and development of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes.