Clinical Psychologist/Counselling PsychologistNHS

Job summary

We are looking for an enthusiastic clinical or counselling psychologist to work in our Community Mental Health Hub as part of an integrated multidisciplinary service designed to deliver a transformed model of care. This is a fixed-term role designed to help the service reduce Psychology service waiting times.

The team works with clients with complex mental health problems, including complex emotional needs, psychosis, bipolar affective disorder, anxiety disorders, recurrent depression and complex PTSD. The post holder will be expected to provide specialist psychological assessment and effective evidence-based interventions.

We are interested in candidates with training and experience in models such as CBT, CBTp, FI, MBT, CAT, DBT, EMDR and ACT. We would like to encourage candidates who are interested in undertaking DBT diploma training to apply for this post.

The post holder will have a commitment to the recovery model, teamwork, and service user and carer involvement. Experience of working with diversity in a multicultural setting is vital. Strong teamwork skills are required.

You will be part of a supportive group of colleagues, with good supervision structures and access to opportunities within the wider Trust for the development of special interests. The service is supportive of continuing professional development and has close links with regional Clinical Psychology training courses.

Main duties of the job

The post-holder will work in the North Kensington and Chelsea Mental Health Hub. The Hub offers a range of interventions for clients presenting with a variety of complex emotional and social difficulties. The Hub provides care for those clients whose needs cannot be adequately met within a briefer treatment framework.

The post-holder will provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy for clients with complex mental health problems. They will also deliver aspects of the psychosocial group programme in the Hub. The psychologist will be expected to offer advice, training and consultation to other members of the team and to non-professional carers.

The post-holder will attend weekly team meetings and case discussion forums. They will have an active role in managing referrals and planning clinical care, and will contribute to the ongoing development of effective recovery-oriented treatment models. They will also play an active role in initiatives to ensure optimal use of psychological therapy resources, so that these are widely accessible and offered in a timely manner. The post-holder will support the team in assessing the psychological and social needs of patients referred to the service, ensuring that psychological needs and factors are given due consideration in the care planning process.

Job description

• To offer specialist psychological assessment and intervention to patients referred to the service
• To provide specialist advice, guidance, and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis, and treatment plan.
• To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems.
• To be responsible for implementing psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups.
• To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options, considering both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients, and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of treatment.

About us

The catchment area of the post is the north of the London Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. The Community Mental Health Hub is based at Hathaway House.

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) is one of the largest trusts in the UK, caring for people with a wide range of physical and mental health needs. We have approximately 7,000 staff who provide healthcare to a third of London's population and across wider geographical areas, including Milton Keynes, Kent, Surrey, Hampshire and Central and North West London.

• If you would like to see what it is like to work for CNWL, please have a look at https://www.cnwl.nhs.uk/work

The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust, we strongly encourage and support vaccination, as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and, of course, patients and service users when working in our healthcare settings.